


To Let the Shadows In

by Aylwyyn228



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Gaslighting, Hallucinations, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Alternating, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Zola is a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:17:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aylwyyn228/pseuds/Aylwyyn228
Summary: Maklakov was a brutal man. He had only ever bought loyalty through fear.He understood little of persuasion. Or control.Zola on the other hand...Or, Bucky is one of the most stubborn men he's ever met, but it doesn't matter. Arnim can be very, very patient.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sat on my hard drive, 90% finished for the last 6 months, so this is my attempt to spur myself into actually finishing it!
> 
> The title is from Exploitation by The Silent Comedy, which is a great song and always makes me think of Bucky.
> 
> Also, fair warning, this fic is 100% Zola gaslighting Bucky. There is not a lot of joy here.
> 
> Enjoy!

Arnim busied himself taking an inventory of the drugs they had in stock. There was little else to do. 

He hated this camp in the mountains. It was isolated and lonely, and he hated the way these soldiers looked at him, like he was worth less than the scum on their shoes.

He missed Munich. He missed his office and his lab. He missed brandy in the club, and late nights discussing philosophy and politics in front of his fireplace.

He even missed his time at the DFG, at least there his work was valued. Here there was nothing but being kept on Schmidt's very short leash.

He heard the stomp of boots outside the door and sighed.

The door opened. "Herr Doktor? Another subject for you."

He glanced up from his work as two Landsers dragged in a prisoner. The man's head was lolling forward, his skin flushed and sticky looking.

He was clearly unconscious.

"What do I want with a dying prisoner?" 

One of the soldiers just shrugged. "Orders from Commander Schmidt."

These men didn't care. Arnim was beginning to doubt Schmidt did either. He seconded anyone with any strength to the workforce and left him with the dregs of humanity for his experiments.

Schmidt was content to be the first and only Übermensch. 

The Landsers dropped the man to the floor.

Arnim scowled, drew himself up to what little height he could muster. "Put him on the bench then."

It couldn't be clearer that these two were following his orders under sufferance, but they did as he asked. Scraping up the man's shins on the metal but getting him settled.

Arnim waved the two away. "You are both dismissed."

The two snapped to attention. "Hail Hydra."

Arnim wondered when exactly they'd stopped Hailing Hitler.

He waited for the door to close behind them and then took a closer look at his subject.

American, by the look of the uniform. Of no great rank.

Increased heart rate and breathing. 

He snagged a stethoscope off a table. 

Fluid in the lungs. 

Pneumonia. Bronchitis, perhaps. It mattered little.

There was no point in attempting the test. Fitter men than this had succumbed.

Arnim sighed, tapped against the table. It was a waste of a subject, however. He hated waste.

Yet…

He thought he had some of the IM0.285 remaining. A few vials. 

He went and checked the cupboard and there were the bottles. 

He took one and a syringe. 

It took him back. Back to the field hospital, when his research was to be used to save lives, back before command had decided that it was more tactically viable to work out how to kill enemy soldiers, rather than to save their own. 

He looked back at the man. 

It couldn't hurt. 

As he got back to the table, the man seemed to start awake, and pitched himself from it to stagger unsteadily over to a trolley.

He was running his eyes over the room, clearly looking for a weapon of some kind.

Arnim sighed. "Sit back down. You would not get far."

The man made no answer. He was gasping in shallow breaths, a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He looked on the points of collapse.

Arnim did not want to try and lug him back onto the table.

He switched to English. "American."

The man's eyes flickered to his. 

"Without medicine, you will be dead within a week. Please," he gestured to the table, "sit."

The man just watched him for a moment. Then apparently gave up, and staggered back over to the table. 

He perched on the edge, looking ill at ease. "You a doctor?" 

"I am." He drew a syringe. "Doctor Zola." 

The man made an acknowledging noise, looked away. "Barnes."

"Hmm." He scanned over the man's uniform. "Unteroffizier?"

"'Scuse me?"

The man was smiling, more of a grimace really. Arnim had the distinct impression he was being laughed at. 

He gestured. "Rank? You command men?"

"Ah, yeah. Sergeant."

"Sergeant." He thought he recognised the word. 

He gestured for the man, Barnes, to hold out his arm. He did.

"What is it?" 

Barnes was frowning at the syringe.  

"It works on the immune system. Increases the ability of the body to fight infection."

Arnim expected Barnes to be lost at this point but the man just nodded, watching as Arnim emptied the drugs into his system.   
  
Arnim wondered what he had done before this, though he didn't suppose he'd ever find out. 

"You can lay back." He gestured at the table, and the man hitched himself back. "It's better if you sleep." 

"Thanks, doc."

Barnes already looked tired, skin drawn and pale. Still, he might be able to get some useful data from him after all.

***

Arnim was pleased to see the improvement the next day. Barnes was sitting up, watching the door with ill-disguised trepidation. He had dragged one of the tables about half a foot, so he could put his back to the wall.

He had the sickly, unwashed look of someone who was coming out of a long illness, but was no longer at death’s door.

Arnim felt a swell of pride. Even if his superiors seemed not to care, his drugs did work. He wished that he could congratulate Ira. His theories had been correct. If either of them actually survived this war, they would likely get the Nobel Prize.

He hoped that Ira made it out of Leipzig.

Barnes seemed to relax a little as he recognised him. “Hey, doc.”

His throat sounded rough and coarse.

“Good morning, Sergeant.” He strolled over to one of the sinks along the wall, filled a glass and handed it over. “I will listen to your lungs.”

Barnes nodded even as he drained the glass.

There was complete silence as Zola listened to the rise fall of his chest. He dropped the stethoscope onto the side. “Improvement.”

Marked improvement, in fact. With any luck they’d be able to proceed with the testing as soon as tomorrow.

Barnes looked up. “Woher… erm… kommen Sie?”

Zola smiled, putting his equipment away. “I am from Basel. In Switzerland. But I lived in Munich before this.”

“And now you’re in Italy.”

Arnim did not bother to correct him. “We go where we are sent.”

Barnes huffed a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Doktor?” One of Schmidt’s lieutenants was by the door. “Commander Schmidt sends word. You are to-“

Arnim held up a hand, suddenly mindful of the man behind him and his very deliberately hesitant German. He had the distinct impression that this was a man used to hiding just how clever he was.

He beckoned the soldier. “In the back.”

The briefing was largely irrelevant. Of no great insight and filled with veiled threats as to his fate should his experiments not succeed.

This was also not new. He had long suspected that Schmidt intended to dispose of him at the first convenient moment.

He was also reasonably certain he could outlast Schmidt’s self-destructive megalomania.

He stepped back out in to the office to find Barnes huddled over by the door, jiggling a scrap of wire into the lock.

Barnes snapped round. His shoulders slumped, despairing. Then he forced a sheepish smile and shrugged. “I had to try.”

Arnim liked this man, he realised, as the soldier at his back strode forward and delivered a stinging backhand across Barnes’s face.

Barnes reeled back to the floor, blinking into the air.

He did not get up.

***

Arnim commenced the experimentation the next morning. He was not present, giving the orders to a couple of his assistants to apply the test substances. A lower dose than previously trialled, in the hope that the bodily systems might adapt more easily.

His presence was not required.

He only made his way over to his makeshift lab when the screams began to echo through the facility.

Barnes was howling when he entered, clawing at his own skin and shouting “I don’t know anything!” in an odd mix of English and German. As Arnim watched, raised red lines began to erupt as he dragged his fingernails across the flesh of his face and arms.

“Restrain him,” he snapped at the watching assistants and soldiers, and waited as they obeyed, lashing leather straps to his wrists and ankles to prevent him from damaging himself.

 Barnes was still thrashing, still shouting in an English dialect which was mostly passing Arnim by. As he stepped forward to do his tests, Barnes eyes fell on him. The look on his face could only be described as betrayed.

It made something uncomfortable twist inside Arnim’s chest.

The results were the same as before, elevated heart rate and respiratory distress.

Still, Barnes stopped screaming quicker than previous subjects.

That could be positive.

***

The dosage was repeated during the night and twice the next day. Barnes would fall to muttering incoherently after each, though he had lasted better than any previous subject.

Perhaps Arnim was heading in the right direction after all.

However, by the time he reached the room for his evening testing, Barnes was almost completely unresponsive, staring vacantly at the ceiling.

Arnim could see the pulse point in his neck fluttering wildly. His heart rate was more than three times the expected range. Breathing soft and shallow.

He did not bother taking his blood pressure. It would be over two hundred by now.

He’d seen this more than enough.

Before morning, Barnes would have had a stroke. His organs would have haemorrhaged and failed. And he would be dead.

Arnim stamped down his disappointment. It was good data.

Next time he would do better.

His train of thought was cut off as an alarm sounded abruptly. He dropped his stethoscope, clattering off the metal table and other the floor. It was enough to startle Barnes into muttering again.

But it didn’t matter. That alarm signalled a perimeter breach.

Arnim gathered up his papers and ran, leaving another failed experiment behind.

Within half an hour, he came face to face with the man. Upright, walking and talking. As if nothing had happened at all. 

He realised abruptly that he had succeeded, and with a single glance at Schmidt's face, decided he was going to keep that firmly to himself.

For the time being at least...

He smiled at Barnes across the flames, got back a feral baring of teeth, and fled the facility in Schmidt's wake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually the bare bones of the prologue I planned. I wrote it intending to edit and expand it, but when I read it back I quite liked how abrupt it was. It seemed to fit Zola.
> 
> I hope you liked it.


	2. Chapter 2

Arnim deliberately didn’t look up as he heard the footsteps echoing around the concrete. It seemed inconceivable to him that his life now consisted almost entirely of flickering fluorescent lights and underground bunkers.

For a second, he longed for Munich, for his apartment, for his bed.

He stamped it down. It was weakness and nostalgia. By all accounts there was nothing left in any case, just charred ruins. 

There was still work to do.

That had not changed.

“Doctor.”

He glanced over to the door. Maklakov was there, looking just as put together as he had when he had met him from the plane.

He gave Arnim the uncanny impression of an insect of some kind, a mantis perhaps, with his too long limbs and his strangely angular features.

Arnim focussed back on his report. “Good morning.”

Maklakov gave an amused hum. Arnim felt him enter the room, stalking behind him. “I trust you had a comfortable night?”

He knew Maklakov found him terribly amusing, with his heavy coat and the gloves he had been unable to stomach removing even inside. He had not been subtle in his mocking.

“Ja, it was quite informative.” He turned the page. “These results are promising.”

 “That is a word for them.” Maklakov folded himself into the chair opposite, crossing his legs neatly.

“You would not agree?”

“He falls short of Erskine’s baselines in almost all measures.”

Arnim let the papers drop onto the table between them. “He is hardly in peak condition. Training will make up the difference. Besides his regenerative capacities far exceed that of Erskine’s subject.” He let his hand ghost over the papers. “I can see from your own experiments that he has proven almost impossible to incapacitate.”

“I would prefer him to have the strength.”

Arnim folded his arms. “I see you still miss the point.”

“Well, then enlighten me, Doctor, because as of now, all I have is an obstinate cripple and a guard with his jaw wired shut.”

Arnim sat back. “The point is his skills. Erskine created a circus strongman, good only for parlour tricks. I have brought you a soldier.”

“You’ve brought me nothing at all. Not unless you can control him.”

Arnim shrugged. “I’ve read your reports. He’s reasonably docile. There have been few… accidents.”

“He has been made docile,” Maklakov agreed.

“Then what exactly is the problem?”

Maklakov leaned forward. “He will not break.”

Arnim laughed. He suddenly understood. Kicked dogs will always bite.

“Is something amusing, Doctor?”

Arnim smiled, gathering up the papers into a neat pile. “You don’t need him to break. You need him to bend.”

***

He didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d slept.

There weren’t days and nights any more. Just bare bulbs and stark light.

He’d tried to count at first, etching tallies into the paint on the wall with his fingernails every time they brought food. He’d got as far as forty-three.

Then they’d stopped bringing food.

They bashed on the door whenever he fell asleep.

Every time he jerked awake, he’d forgotten where he was.

Expected to be back in the tenement.

Back in Brooklyn.

Safe.

The world was blurry. Too far away and too close all at once.

Like maybe he wasn’t here at all.

Laid against the floor.

Shaking.

Footsteps outside. Jackboots. The door slammed open.

He hated that he flinched.

“Up.”

He didn’t move quick enough. The guard yanked him up by the wrist.

“Move.”

He was unsteady. He hadn’t been out of the room in… He couldn’t remember being out of the room…

His wrist was jerked forward again.

“You fall and I drag you, da?”

“Da.”

He stumbled forward as the guard’s hand slapped against the back of his head.

“Don’t speak.”

The rules changed with no warning. He couldn’t keep up.

He was pulled down corridors. He tried to count them at first. The lefts and the rights.

He couldn’t remember.

He felt too fuzzy.

The guard shoved him into a room, pushed him into a chair in the centre of the room. He didn’t fight it.

He wondered when he’d stopped fighting it.

Straps cinched tight, around his wrist, across his chest, his forehead.

He didn’t know where they expected him to go.

The guard left.

He was alone.

The room was blessedly dark. So, so dark, after the stark white of the room.

And he was tired. He was so, so tired.

He didn’t care anymore.

Didn’t care about anything except sleep.

He was shivering. Felt like he was floating. Like he was no longer part of himself.

“Sergeant Barnes.”

He flinched awake, nearly tipped the chair over with the force of it.

Zola. The little fucker was grinning.

His mouth was moving.

Bucky missed the start.

“…back with us.”

The room was still dark, but now there was a lamp, illuminating a small halo of a table in front of him. Zola was shuffling something around on the table.

There were strange jerky jumps in his movement, stuttering like an old silent film.

“… Sorry … treated… my absence.”

The words didn’t make sense.

“What?”

Bucky stiffened as soon as the word left his mouth. He’d forgotten the new rule.

_Don’t speak._

But Zola was just smiling as he turned around. He stepped forward, brushing a hand lightly over the stump of his left arm.

The guards had ripped off the sleeve of his shirt at the seam.

So he had to look at it. 

The shrivel of what was left of it.

The slow wasting of his muscles.

He couldn’t feel Zola’s fingers, not until they trailed high onto his shoulder and squeezed.

“It is unfortunate.” Zola stepped in front of him again, raised his finger, grinning that lunatic grin. “But I will find a solution, be assured.”

Bucky had the sudden thought that he had stepped into a film.

_It’s alive!_

He was pretty sure that made him Boris Karloff. 

He was laughing. Unstrung and hysterical.

He missed what Zola was saying.

Til the slap across the cheek knocked the joking right outta him.

“Sergeant Barnes, I promise that you will regret not paying attention to this conversation.”

He was pretty sure he regretted every damn thing he’d done since he was drafted.

But Zola had kept on talking.

He couldn’t understand… it was too…

He was staring at a spot way over on the far wall, he knew. Well behind where Zola was talking at him.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

But he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t get a handle on it all.

He heard Zola’s deep sigh.

A hand on his shoulder. Warm. Rubbing at his skin through his shirt.

“Here.”

He felt cold metal against his lip and he was too exhausted to resist.

But it was just water. It drew a hum of surprise out of him at how ice cold it was, but it was water. And God, he didn't realise how thirsty he'd been, how desperate. 

He gulped at it until Zola pulled it away.

And gasped as the rest of it was dumped over his head, so cold it took his breath away, made his head ache, washed his hair forward over his eyes.

He was gasping and spluttering and shivering and it felt like forever. 

But then Zola was back, brushing his hair back from his face and shushing him, as water dripped down the back of his shirt.

"This is better?"

"Da.” He drew in a shaky breath. “Yes. Yeah."

"Das ist gut."

Zola was still squeezing against his shoulder gently, brushing through his hair. “I regret that it has been so many years. We have lost much time.”

The kneading against his back was hypnotic. He felt like he was lolling backwards, overbalanced and too heavy for his body.

“But for the moment, I am here. And we have work to do. Ja?”

“Ja. Die Aufgabe.”

“Sehr gut.”

Zola stepped away and for a second, Bucky was certain that he would fall. His stomach dropped away from him. Vertigo swallowed him up.

“Years?”

Zola was smiling faintly. "Ja, Sergeant. It is 1948."

He felt like he’d been doused in water again.

“What?”

Zola was still smiling. "It would appear that our Siberian colleagues have been more successful than they realised." He suddenly clapped his hands. "Das ist wunderbar, ja?”

The strap on the chair was creaking. He realised he was rhythmically pulling at it.

“No… It’s…” He didn’t know what he was trying to say. Perhaps he hadn’t understood.

Zola ignored him, went back over to the table. “Nevertheless, my superiors are… disappointed in your progress. You are wilful. Obstinate. It is hampering your advancement. They are looking for a more rapid solution. Which brings us to Dr Moniz.”

He turned back. He was holding something, flashing in the lamplight, a tool. It looked familiar… a chisel?

Except it was too thin, too long to be a chisel.

He knew what it was… He just couldn't...

He couldn’t think.

"Have you heard of the term leucotomy, Sergeant Barnes?"

It couldn’t, couldn’t be 1948.

“Are you paying attention, Sergeant?”

He forced himself to meet Zola’s eye, nodded.

It seemed it was good enough. “Leucotomy? Have you heard the term?”

“No.”

It was true, his hair had grown, long enough to fall into his eyes. But not long enough for…

How could he have lost three years?

“Dr Moniz has developed a procedure to induce compliance in difficult psychiatric patients. I find it… imprecise. But they say it gets results. They say he will get the Nobel Prize.”

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

Christ, Zola would be pissed if he just keeled over right now. Perhaps he was dying. He felt like he was dying.

Zola was swimming in and out of focus in front of him, still talking, rattling away in the background. But he couldn’t focus on it. 

Zola seemed to jump six feet forward, leaning right into his face, fingernails suddenly digging sharply into his jaw. “You must pay attention, Sergeant Barnes. It is imperative. They say that Freeman has perfected the technique. It is crude. Ineffective. But it has garnered much attention, even in such remote corners of the earth.”

He let go. Stood up.

A small hammer had joined the chisel in his hand.

“My superiors are eager for it to be put to use. Do you understand?”

Bucky’s head was still swimming with half-joined thoughts as he realised it was a pick, not a chisel.

It was a pick…

It was a fucking pick.

Whatever else fear did, it was sure good at clearing the mind. Everything that Zola had been saying suddenly filtered through, like the ice water all over again.

A ‘procedure'? Holy shit… holy fuck…

He couldn't breathe.

And Zola was still going. He was still talking.

“Freeman’s procedure involves severing connections within the brain, essentially it removes the frontal lobe from the functioning brain. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“No… Yes?”

“Gut. As I have said, the procedure is imprecise. Unrefined. I fear its effects are unpredictable. But you have been very incompliant. It has made my superiors impatient for results.”

Zola grasped tightly at his jaw again. “These are all the instruments required. The frontal lobe can be accessed through the orbital opening.” He angled the pick upwards, pressing the cold metal against his cheek. “That is the eye, Sergeant. You must tell me if I am being unclear.”

Oh, it was clear. It was real fucking clear.

He realised he was pulling rhythmically at the strap again, it was making an eerie creaking noise, scratching against the chair. But he couldn’t shift his face away, couldn't break free. “Please.”

Zola was ignoring him. He brought the pick up, pressed it against the corner of Bucky's eye.

No. No, no.

Oh fuck! Oh Christ!

His vision was starting to go blurry. Fuzzy at the side.

“Please, no, no…”

“It is really quite ingenious. The orbitoclast is very effective at destroying brain matter. Freeman has simplified the procedure dramatically.” He brought the hammer up. “Just a single tap of the hammer and all is complete, ja.”

“Please, no. Bitte! Bitte, no! Bitte!”

He didn’t know he could make a noise like that. This strangled begging…

He dimly realised he'd give up everything. Maybe he'd already given up everything. Pride no longer mattered. Any residual sense of dignity was gone.

He would do anything. Anything Zola asked.

Anything at all.

“I know, Sergeant. I understand. The procedure is imprecise. The risks are too great. Destruction of intellect, of bodily control. I have seen its results. The creatures it produces. I cannot believe such drastic measures are necessary.”

He was making a low noise in the back of his throat. Like an animal. He couldn't seem to figure out how to stop making it.

“Ja, ja, I know. We cannot allow it. To ruin all our good work.”

Zola leaned back, let the pick fall.

“These Russians have no subtlety. No patience. They do not understand the complexity of the brain. Between us I think we can show them a better way, ja?”

“Ja! Ja! You don't have to do it.”

He knew what it was. Knew it was a trap. But it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered but avoiding this. Nothing mattered but getting out of this room intact.

“Sehr gut, Sergeant. I knew you were a reasonable man. Together we will do great things, without need for such… barbarism.”

Zola was smiling. Bucky was pretty sure that smile was the worst thing in the world.

He knew he'd just sold himself. Had the distinct feeling that he should be ashamed. That his ma would be ashamed of him. That Steve would be ashamed.

But Stevie was dead, they'd shown him the newspaper clippings, straight from Berlin.

Maybe Stevie wouldn't have broken. Woulda clung on even while he was spitting out blood and teeth. Maybe Stevie would’ve endured.

Maybe Stevie would’ve put a Luger in his mouth.

But Bucky didn’t have it in him. He wouldn’t ever have it in him. No matter what the alternative.

And he was pretty goddamn sure that Zola could make the alternative unendurable. An ice pick to the eye? Scrambling around inside his brain. Pissing and bleeding and crying all over himself. That was beyond… beyond anything.

There was no one coming on a white horse to save him. If there ever had been, they were three years too late. So there was only this.

Zola had finished putting his tools away. He leaned over to unfasten the straps against Bucky’s wrist, across his forehead, hands barely brushing him. “I will go and convince my superiors there is another way. We have invested much, ja? Too much to waste it all.”

He squeezed against Bucky’s shoulder one last time, before he left, footsteps echoing out beyond the room.

Bucky tried to push himself to his feet. There was an open door behind him, if he could just…

His legs felt mushy.

He took a staggering step forward, bent over and puked up a straggly string of bile.


	3. Chapter 3

Barnes was curled up on the bed when Arnim arrived at the doorway.

It was at his instruction that Barnes had been allowed a few comforts. Maklakov had fought him, of course, arguing that prisoners must earn such privileges. It was not until Arnim had loudly argued that for Barnes to learn any lesson at all, he must at least be conscious for it.

Maklakov had relented, grudgingly, but then Maklakov was a brutal man. He had only ever bought loyalty through fear.

He understood little of persuasion. Or control.

Arnim gestured to the door, but it was not until the guards gained Maklakov’s silent approval that he was granted entry.

Barnes did not look up, not even when the door closed with a click behind him and left them alone in the stuttering artificial light.

Arnim gestured to the foot of the bed. “May I sit?”

He did not move until he saw the fractional bob of Barnes’s head.

Arnim took his seat, by Barnes’s feet, and deposited the package he had brought with him on the blanket. He clapped his hands together, the sound muffled by the thick gloves. “It is cold today, is it not?”

Barnes made no answer. He was kneading at the stump of his arm, a gentle squeeze of fingers.

Arnim crossed his feet at the ankles. “That hurts you?”

Barnes dropped his hand abruptly.

Just as Arnim was about to try another topic, he heard Barnes speak, just barely an intake of breath. “Why?”

Arnim frowned. “Why do I care if you are in pain?”

Barnes shook his head. “The man, the… errr…” he broke off, and for the briefest of seconds the blankness of his face was overtaken by confusion.

“Maklakov?”

“Yeah,” Barnes shook his head as if to clear it, “him. He said I was lucky you were here. That you’d got me this.” He tapped against the bed, jerked his head in the direction of waste bucket in the corner. “Why?”

“I’m not a cruel man, Sergeant.”

Barnes made a noise that might have been a laugh.

Arnim sat back. “You doubt me. I have already saved your life twice. Three times if you include preventing Maklakov from drilling into your skull.”

That got Barnes to sit up, face contorting through a range of emotions before apparently settling on derision. “Yeah, you’re a real saint.”

Arnim kept his voice very level. “If it were not for my experiments, you would be long dead.”

Barnes gave one very slow glance around him. “Thanks, doc.”

Arnim let himself smile. “Very well, if you do not believe that I care for your wellbeing, believe that I care very much for my experiments. You are the pinnacle-“

“Yeah. I’ve heard the speech. I’m King Arthur, back to life to save the world or some shit, right?”

“No, you are something entirely new.”

Barnes gave a pointed glance at what was left of his arm. “Really? Cos I think Uncle Sam already used me up.”

Arnim just smiled again. Now was not the time to engage in this argument. Barnes was not yet ready.

He picked up the package and began to unwrap it. Barnes sat up straighter as the rich smell filled the cell.

“Stollen,” Arnim continued unwrapping it slowly. “I had noticed that Russian cuisine is hardly the most appetising.”

He broke off a tiny piece and popped it into his mouth. He shrugged. “A little stale. But better than nothing, I think.”

Barnes was leaning forward ever so slightly, Arnim doubted he was even aware of it. “What do you want?”

“I had hoped we could talk like men.” The flash of confusion crossed Barnes’s face again. Arnim clasped his hands together. “I propose a fair exchange. I will pay for an answer with stollen, ja?”

Barnes didn’t answer, but his eyes were fixed on the pastry.

“Sergeant Barnes? Will you answer my questions?”

Barnes’s eyes flickered up. “Depends on the question.”

Arnim laughed. “This is a wise answer. I will begin and then you can make your decision.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if pondering where to start. “Where are you from, Sergeant?”

There was a long pause. “New York.”

Arnim gestured for him to continue.

Another pause. “Brooklyn.”

“Ah,” Arnim smiled, clapped his hands together, “Ellis Island? Gateway to America, ja?”

Barnes regarded him for a long moment. “Sure.”

Arnim gestured to the stollen. “Please.”

He waited until Barnes had broken off a piece and raised it tentatively to his mouth. Arnim caught the noise that escaped him. The first half of a sigh, quickly silenced.

Arnim gave him a moment. Let him come to the realisation that cooperation would get him the whole thing.

“And what was your work?”

Arnim could admit to himself that he was curious as to the answer. Curious as to who this man was? The only man to have the capacity to survive his transformation. He was including Schmidt and the Captain in that. Both were dead of overconfidence and recklessness.

Barnes was sat up straighter now, more comfortable in answering. “I did a lot of things. I guess I was a labourer, mostly.”

That was disappointing. Arnim had hoped for more from his soldier, still, his previous life was of little consequence.

He gestured once more to the package.

Barnes seemed to note his dissatisfaction in the answer, hesitantly reaching for another piece, as if it might be snatched away. “I boxed. I mean, a little.”

“Ah?” Arnim nodded. He did not want to give Barnes too much encouragement, wanted to keep the edge of desperation to their interactions. Barnes’s desire to please was worth remembering. “You were skilled?”

“Yeah. I suppose. I mean, I won more than I lost.”

Arnim smiled. “It was good money? Prizes?”

He thought he caught the ghost of an answering grin. “Yeah. Didn’t go far, but it was worth takin the hits for, you know?”

Arnim nodded as if he did. “You had many to take care of?”

“Three sisters.” There was that ghost of a smile again. “And-“ He cut himself off, the slightest hesitation, but Arnim heard it. “And ma, after pa passed.”

This time Barnes took the stollen without asking.

“How old were you?”

“Twenty.”

Arnim shook his head. “Ah, young for so much responsibility.” Barnes made a noise of agreement. “What is your mother’s name?”

Barnes was still licking the icing sugar from his fingers when his face dropped. Abrupt shock flashed over him. He jumped up, nearly unsettled the precious package from the bed. Arnim caught it before it hit the ground.

“What did you do to me?”

Barnes was hovering above him, fist clenching and unclenching, as if he couldn’t decide whether to throttle him or put as much distance between them as possible. In the shadow of the lamplight from above his face looked gaunt and feral.

Arnim kept his voice deliberately calm. “You do not recall?”

“What did you do!”

Arnim raised his hands in peace. “It is to be expected. You are fatigued, still half starved.” He gestured to Barnes’s left. “You have survived great injury. It is not uncommon-“

“No!” Barnes eyes were darting around the room, up to the ceiling, as if he was contemplating scaling the walls. “No! You did somethin! They _did_ somethin!”

“Who did?”

Barnes gestured vaguely towards the door. “Them.” He cast around the room again, frowning. “Maklakov!”

He said it like it was a triumph to remember the name.

Arnim leaned forward. “What did they do?”

Barnes was breathing heavily. “There was a room. Fire.”

“A room with fire?”

Barnes nodded. “In my head.”

“I see.” Arnim patted at the bed at his side.

Barnes took a step backwards. “Fuck you.”

What he said next was too quick for Arnim to catch, or too full of dialect words. Regardless, he could take a guess as to it’s meaning.  

“Please, Sergeant.” He spread his arms wide. “This is to be expected. You were injured.”

He managed to catch himself the second before he said damaged.

“What do you-“ Barnes snapped to attention. “I’m not nuts!”

“Of course not. Injured. And I am a doctor.”

Barnes didn’t move. “Yeah, you sure keep sayin it.”

Arnim smiled again, held out the stollen. “Please.”

Barnes hesitated again, face showing the war inside his head. He darted forward to snatch the parcel and then reeled back to crouch in the opposite corner.

He was holding the stollen tightly, out in front of him.

Arnim understood. It was a test, to see if he would stop him. He sat back as Barnes pulled off another piece of the pastry, ate it in provocation.

“They did it,” he said decisively. Though which of them he was trying to convince, Arnim couldn’t be sure.

Arnim inclined his head, ready to concede the point, but Barnes cut him off. “I ask you somethin?”

“Ja, of course.”

Barnes settled himself down in the corner. Peeled off more of the pastry. “You’re goin back.”

Arnim frowned. “Back?”

“Back to America.”

His first thought was anger, that someone had been so loose tongued, that one of the guards had been taken in by their prisoner, before the answer came to him.

He sat back. “You understand Russian.”

Barnes nodded.

He had picked up German and Russian remarkably quickly. The serum may have also increased cognitive ability.

Though perhaps Barnes already possessed an affinity with languages.

Arnim suppressed his annoyance. Wartime was not ideal for controlling variables within experiments. It was a wasted opportunity.

He focussed back on the task at hand.

“Why reveal this now? It is a useful skill. More useful if it remained secret, I think.”

Barnes raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, it apparently ain’t come in too useful in the last three years. Thought I’d chance my arm.” He smiled bitterly. “The other one.”

“You have not asked your question.”

“They caught you, on the train, that’s the only reason you’d be in America.”

Arnim nodded. “That is true, but still not a question.”

Barnes was chewing at his lip, making his decision. Finally, he deposited the stollen on the floor, half behind himself, Arnim noted. He would not be giving that up easily.

“Did you see Captain Rogers before… Before?”

Arnim had not been expecting that. News of home, perhaps. Or the fate of his country, following the war that he had so far expressed no interest in.

Not an anecdote concerning a man that he knew to be years dead.

But Barnes was leaning forwards, palm flat on the concrete.

“Once. We crossed paths in a corridor in their facility.”

Barnes wet cracked lips. “How did he look?”

Arnim thought of lying, of trying to find some angle of control, but he could admit to himself that he was curious. He would indulge Barnes.

He thought of the Captain, in that corridor. Pale, and drawn. Eyes red rimmed and circled in dark bruises.

A single word came to mind.

“He looked distraught.”

Barnes’s expression was very, very taught. The slightest downward twitch of his lip.

“They said…” Arnim began, waiting for Barnes’s attention. His eyes were like two hollow pools. “They said that he made no attempt to land the plane.”

Barnes swallowed thickly.

“That he put the plane in the water deliberately.” Arnim smiled. “Of course, they did not put that in the papers.”

Barnes was staring at him.

Arnim clasped his hands. “Captain America, der Feigling. It does not play well, you see.”

Barnes closed his eyes for one second. Two. Then he took a gasping breath. And another. Like a dying man.

He buckled. His arm gave out and collapsed him gently to the floor, forehead against the concrete.

There was nothing about it that was violent. If it weren’t for the hitch of each stuttering breath, he would be entirely quiet.

But Arnim could just make out the curve of his features, half hidden in their own shadows, contorted into a silent animal howl.  

And then he began to cry. The same awful heaving breaths.

It struck Arnim, suddenly, as he watched, that this kind of anguish was bone deep and ancient.

It was the kind of grief that took down empires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is enjoying this (if that's the right word!)
> 
> Apologies for my terrible German throughout!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the darkest chapter of the whole thing. Let me know if anything needs a warning.

Notice of commencement of MK style testing of S1

09/08/55

Recommended after correspondence with SG

NM

***

Negative

Permission denied

Evidence of benefits highly inconclusive

Await instruction

AZ

***

Permission not required

Evidence provided from CAL promising

Itinerary developed in line with SG’s recommendations

Command approved

Notice of commencement of testing tomorrow 0930 (YEKT)

NM

***

MK not recommended

Theory is flawed

Await instruction

AZ

***

Negative

Testing commenced 0930 (YEKT) 09/08/55

NM

***

Cease testing immediately

Await my arrival

AZ

***

Negative

NM

***

He was huddled up in the corner of the room, knees up to his chest, pressed up against the junction of the two walls. Reminding himself that the room wasn’t really spinning.

It wasn’t real.

He repeated that to himself several times a day.

None of it was real.

The churning of the floor beneath him, the walls roiling and bulging in.

The ants…

The ants spewing out of the hole behind the metal framed cot in the opposite corner.

Fuck, he hated the ants. When he fell asleep, he’d wake with them crawling into his mouth.

Except, they weren’t… Cos they weren’t real.

Maybe.

Fuck.

He pressed his face into his knees.

It’d been two days since they changed the IV bag. He’d slept twice since then, at least.

The tally he’d been hashing on the wall was all but illegible, scratched out with deep slashes. He couldn’t remember doing that… Couldn’t imagine why he had.

He wished he hadn’t. The marching lines had felt almost like company.

The whispers at the back of his skull had stopped. Sometime in the empty void of space since he’d last seen someone. They weren’t real either. The voice that was familiar, but that he couldn’t place. Telling him awful, awful things.

But Hell, if he wasn’t thinking them same damn things anyway.

He could ignore them.

But this, this was something else.

The ants tapped against his eyelids.

He wanted to scream.

He didn’t understand what they wanted. Maklakov, coming to stand and watch him through the door.

They’d come they give him the IVs and lock him in the room and they’d wait. And then they’d ask him questions he didn’t understand and couldn’t answer.

And then they’d lock him in the room again.

He didn’t know how to make it stop. He’d do any damn thing they wanted, but they didn’t tell him.

They never liked his answers.

“Oh, man, you look awful.”

It wasn’t real.

He could smell the cigarette smoke. But it was just one of the guards outside.

Just the guard.

He’d managed to sweettalk one of them into slipping a snipe under the door. Pressing his fingers through the gap, praying they weren’t just gonna get stepped on. Pleading in halting Russian.

Steve’s ma had always said he was an urchin, sneaking in their open window to nab some of whatever she was baking.

_Jaysus, you put the heart crossways in me, Jimmy Barnes! Gerroff them scones, you little wastrel!_

The snap of her wooden spoon against his knuckles. Never hard enough to hurt.

He guessed Mrs Rogers was right after all.

There was another waft of smoke.

He heard the huff of a familiar laugh. He lifted his head, knowing what he’d see.

Knowing that he had to see.

Gabe was there, sat on the cot, smoking a Lucky, like the ones they’d used to share on watch, the nights when they could see their breath. The ants were pouring up and down his uniform, across the skin of his hands and face.

Neat lines of them.

Every so often one made its way as far as the end of his cigarette and burned all up in a little glow of flame.

He could almost hear them screech as they die.

“You got yourself in some shit, ain’t ya, pal? Always said you was only good for trouble.” Gabe’s mouth split into a grin that was too wide. “Still, lucky for the rest of us you’re all scrambled up, ain’t it? You’da spilled your guts a thousand times over by now.”

Gabe was laughing, crackling of the walls. “Boy, you know you ain’t got no mettle. We’re all dead already, though. No one left to sell.”

Gabe ( _not Gabe, no_ ) took another drag of his cigarette, and the burning didn’t stop at the filter, carried on up onto his face. Seared the skin away from his teeth.

Grinning like a skull.

He didn’t want to see it, dropped his face into his knees.

“We’re all waiting on you, pal. No coin for the ferryman though,” he clicked his tongue, “so’s I guess you’re stuck there, bud.”

He heard Gabe get up, his footsteps across the floor. Ducked his head further into his knees, blue and green sparks flashing in front of his eyes with the pressure.

The ghost of a brush over his skin. Over his hair.

He shivered.

And the ants were chittering and scuttling. Crawling over his skin.

But not-Gabe was gone. 

He could still feel the brushing and patting over his hair.

He wished it would stop.

He wished it was real.

The hand in his hair tightened. “Jim?”

No.

“Jim?” The hands were tugging at his hair. Curling in and shaking him gently. “Ma says you ain’t havin any porridge if ya don’t get up right now. Rose and Lizzie are gonna split it, and that ain’t fair, Jim.” A harder shake. “Jim!”

It wasn’t real. She wasn’t there.

“Jim? You bring my Kisses?”

Those days after work, that brief time when he was near grown and she was still small. ‘Kisses, is it?’, scooping her up and makin like he was gonna plant one on her cheek, while she laughed and squirmed away.  ‘Nah, Jim! Hersheys!’

“No.”

“Jim?” She was still pulling at his hair. “Jim!”

“No. No, no! Fuck off!” He threw himself upwards, making to shove at her tiny body, but he just staggered, overbalanced, through empty air.

So he just kept goin, cos he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t give a shit.

He hurled himself at the metal door.

And suddenly he was screamin, and hollerin and hammerin against the door, as if he could smash himself to pieces against it. Like the tide.

As if he could wreck himself on it.

Something gave up inside his fist, a snap of bone and muscle. It didn’t hurt.

Nothing hurt properly anymore. Perhaps that wasn’t real either.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t draw in air. His chest was heavin, as he was clingin onto the door and the ants…

The ants were gonna pull him right through the floor.

He screwed his eyes up tight. The world tilted. Drunk.

And he was on the ground.  

He reckoned it was even odds on whether he’d passed out, or whether he’d finally just lost it. It was pretty hard to care either way.

Not when there was a warm weight at his back.

“Stevie?”

“Mmmm?” He could feel the rumble of sound through him, the weight of Steve’s arm across his waist.

He wasn’t gonna open his eyes. Not to see Stevie all charred up like the corpses at Azzano.

“Can you make the ants go away?”

There was a long pause as he felt Steve sit up and start straightening out his limbs where he dropped on top of em like a ragdoll. His hand on the back of his neck.

“Ya ain’t making much sense there, pal.”

There was a fondness in Steve’s voice that he hadn’t realised he’d missed. Maybe he’d forgotten it’d ever existed.

“I know.” He started laughing. “I’m fuckin bats, Stevie. Certifiable.”

Steve hummed. “That’s not very funny, Buck.”

“Urgh. You were always a killjoy.”

Steve didn’t answer.

“You came for me before, ya remember? Thought you were a goddamn angel. Thought I was dyin.”

“I remember.”

The world had started spinning again. He felt almost like he was falling through the floor. He lifted his hand and found Steve’s shirt.  Because even if Steve wasn’t there, at least he felt solid.

It was only after a second that he realised he was clinging on with his left hand.

Fitting, really.

“I saw the newspapers.” He struggled to remember, to put words to the headlines he’d read in broken German way back at the start of all this. “You went down over the Arctic Ocean.”

Steve’s hand was resting on his chest, thumbing over the dip at the base of his throat. “You really wanna talk about that?”

“I held up my end of the deal, Steve. You went without me.”

“You were dead, Buck.”

He finally opened his eyes. And Stevie was there, all gold and blue and fucking perfect. Right down to the little line in between his eyebrows.

The one that said he was hurt.

He smiled. Or, approximated one. Couldn’t really remember the movements. “Think your information’s a bit outta date there, pal.”

Steve smiled too, that way he always did. “Yours might be too, punk. Don’t know which bit of all this suggests livin to you.”

Steve brushed over his forehead. He had the sudden urge to reach up, to cup Stevie’s cheek and just feel the warmth of his skin, but his limbs felt like they weren’t his anymore.

His dream-Steve seemed to know all of that, because he picked up his hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Stevie?”

“Yeah?”

“You do it on purpose?”

“Yeah, darlin, I did.”

He felt the warmth of tears well up, overflow in little heated tracks down the sides of his face and into his hair. “I never wanted you to give up. Ya always said, always… I-“

“Hey,” a kiss pressed against his cheek, “none of that. Ain’t worth any of that. Least I’m not here.”

_In this shit. With you._

He opened his eyes again, looked at Stevie, over him, all beauty. “Why’d you leave me? I never wanted you to leave me.”

Steve sighed.

“You left me. Way back on that table, screamin and pissin all over yourself. Shoutin out every goddamn secret you could remember.”

Steve’s eyes slid down the line of his body with undisguised disdain.

 It made him want to sink into the floor.

Steve flicked back up to him again. He gave a shrug. The worst smile in the world. “Guess I just hit my line, Buck.”

“Stevie-“

“Don’t you worry.” Steve crawled over him. Straddled his hips. Hands running up the line of his ribs. “You’re gonna outlast everyone. Cos you’ll do anythin to live. Anythin. ‘S what made you such a good soldier. Such-“

He scrunched his eyes up. “Stevie, please.”

“Oh.” Steve’s lips were on his jaw, on his throat. Hands trailing downwards. “I’m here.”

He knew it wasn’t real. Knew it was obscene. But he didn’t care.

He was bucking upwards into thin air. Into Steve.

And his hands were in Steve’s hair, and Steve was on him and in him and-

He woke up as the door clattered open. The rush of cleaner air over him.

“-talking to?”

There were two of them and Bucky couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Hey,” one of the guards kicked his ankle, “I’m talkin to you.”

“Leave it, Mirko. He’s checked out. See?”

“Fucking tapped is what he is.”

“Hey, Buck.” He lolled his head over to watch Steve, small now, sitting over on the cot. His shirt rolled up to his elbows and scuffed up with pencil marks and charcoal. Smiling. “Play your cards right, and you might get another cigarette. They aren’t Luckies, this side of the world. But beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

He could hear the footsteps of the guards. Could hear them discussing him in low voices.

“That big guy?” Steve nodded over. “I heard him, he’d like ya on your back.”

He closed his eyes.

“Urgh.” He felt the guard step up close, nudge his hip with his foot, where the evidence of his dream was currently drying in the front of his pants. “Fuckin faggot.”

And he couldn’t say why, couldn’t explain it in any meaningful way, but that ignited something in him. The ghost of the fella that used to take a guy outside for daring to say any of that shit about Stevie.

He was on his feet before he could think.

The first guard’s nose exploded with blood against his fist, and he dropped, clutching at his face.

Bucky rounded on the second, surging forward to throw him against the wall. The man gasped and dropped the same as his pal had, leaving a smear of blood down the wall.

The door was open.

He was moving. Out into the corridor. The same grey walls.

He couldn’t remember coming down here. Didn’t know where he was.

There was a faint hissing coming out of the vents that had Bucky pressing his nose into the crook of his elbow. Muscle memory he didn’t remember learning.

He reached the far end. A locked door.

The hissing was louder here. He was beginning to feel woozy, dizzy, the metal flickering in and out of focus.

He jammed his fingers into the side of the door frame, tried to drag it open, but there wasn’t a big enough gap and it didn’t budge. The air was thick and his fingers were bleeding from the nails.

He drew back to land a punch directly onto the lock. The door shuddered and metal sheared and his hand was broken, but he did it again, and again.

There was blank space where the lock had been.  

The door was swinging, and he was falling through it.

Falling forwards.

The last thing he thought was ‘fuck’, as his cheek connected with the concrete, and he took one huge reflexive lungful of gas.

***

When he woke up, he couldn’t see. It sent a thrill of icy terror shooting up his spine, because they’d done it, they’d finally fucking done it.

He jerked and found that he was restrained. He was making some strange kind of mewling sound, muffled by whatever was in his mouth.

Because he had to touch his face. He had to know.

Things didn’t hurt like they were supposed to, so they could’ve… could’ve…

The restraints were so tight he couldn’t even thrash. There was no way to get any leverage at all. Straps across his wrist, ankles, shoulders, waist.

Even his face.

His face…

There was something covering his face.

Shit. Christ. That was something, something to cling to.

Fuck.

There were footsteps in the room. He couldn’t turn to look. Couldn’t jerk away from the touch to his arm.

“My great aunt used to have a canary.”

Maklakov. Shit.

“It was a beautiful creature. But very demanding. Whenever it was left alone, it used to make the most terrible racket. Whenever it was left to its own devices.” The touch was trailing up and down his arm. “My great uncle hated the bird. Hated its noise, hated that it would snap and peck at anyone who came near. But my aunt, she loved it, so it remained in the house, and my uncle was forced to contain his annoyance.”

A weight depressed the bed, warm against his hip.

He tried to shout, to scream, ‘get your fucking hands off me’. But whatever was in his mouth stopped him from forming the words. Blocked all sounds but stifled grunts.

Shit.

Fuck.

But Maklakov didn’t go any further. Didn’t touch him.

“And then my uncle found the solution. He was told by a friend, that whenever the bird grew restless, he should cover the cage with a thick fabric. He went home, immediately, and tried it, and voila. The bird was silent.”

A hand against his shoulder. The weight left the bed.

‘Please!’ He tried to shout. ‘My eyes? What about my eyes?’

Maklakov tutted over by the door. “Still squawking. But no longer snapping. The rest will do you good, Sergeant.”

The door closed and he knew he was alone. Alone in all that darkness and all that silence.

He wanted to scream.

Another weight depressed the bed, but he knew who this one was.

“Stevie?”

“Yeah, pal, I’m here.”

This was his Stevie, not like the one before.

“Did they do somethin to me? Did they… Can ya see?”

He felt Steve shift. “I can’t tell, Buck.” Steve’s hand slipped into his, warm and gripping tight. “I’m only in your head, ya see?”

He sounded apologetic about it.

“I know.” He squeezed Steve’s hand back. “I really tried, Stevie. I did. I tried to get away.”

“I know, pal.” Steve was drawing patterns on the back of his hand with his thumb. “Wasn’t worth it, was it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first wrote this chapter back in July, and I must have rewritten it about eighty times since then. I hope you liked it!


	5. Chapter 5

He knows who will be in the room even before he gets there, and sure enough, there is Zola. Sat. Grinning.

There’s a chair opposite him. Thin. Metal. A small table at the side. A notebook and a pencil. Neat. In order.

A shove at his back, pushing him into the room. He stumbles. Legs shaky from disuse.

He glares back at them.

A feral joy wells up in him as the guards take a step back. Shift their rifles up with a stuttering click. He sees the flash of their fear. He bares his teeth.

“Come in, Sergeant.”

He turns back. Zola is still grinning.

He steps forward. Into the room.

Zola gestures at the guards behind him to lower their guns. Smiles back at him. “Leave us.”

He hears the guards leave.

He starts pacing. The room is small. Six steps back and forth.

But it’s bigger than his cell.

Better than the bed.

The thought of the bed sends an ice shard through his brain. He twitches it away.

He wonders if they’ll keep him here from now on. The door is securable.

They could keep him here and he’d be able to walk around.

He’d like that.

Zola clicks his tongue. “Would you like to take a seat?”

He shakes his head. Keeps pacing.

He hasn’t walked in so long.

He can’t sit. Won’t sit.

Not until they make him.

The bulb is buzzing above them.

He’s biting his nails.

He’s still pacing.

Zola tuts again. “Ja. I know. It is hard to be so… confined. Perhaps if you were cooperative they would let you go outside.”

Outside. Plants and rain and air.

Sunlight.

“Would you like to go outside?”

He pauses in the middle of his pacing. Looks at Zola, sat so neatly.

He nods.

He thinks he’d like to see the birds.

“Then sit.”

He considers it.

He sits. Facing Zola.

Quiet. Compliant.

He waits.

“Sehr gut, Sergeant.” Zola sits back, hands clasped in his lap. “Now, our colleagues have sent for me to assess the development of their programme. It seems they fear they are not making the progress they envisioned. Would you agree with that?”

He doesn’t answer. It’s a trick. A trap.

It’s a lie.

He knows.

He’ll incriminate himself and they’ll lock him back in the room. Back on the bed.

He won’t get to go outside.

“Sergeant?”

Zola is very patient, hands still clasped. Someone’s spoken to him like that before. Real patient and slow.

Stevie. Back when he was just a regular lunatic, after Azzano.

He thinks he’s smiling.

“Something is amusing, Sergeant?”

He shakes his head.

“Then would you like to tell me how the programme is progressing?”

He looks away. Up at the bulb. He lets it burn a purple disc into his vision.

“Sergeant? The programme?”

He smiles again.

“It’s not real.”

Zola frowns. “What is not real?”

He freezes.

It’s too late.

He can’t take it back.

“Sergeant.” Zola leans forward. “What is not real?”

He doesn’t know how to answer. He just gestures around them.

And then he gets up.

The light is still buzzing. He wants to rip it from the ceiling.

He is pacing again.

“Sergeant, if all this is not real then what is?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to answer.

They don’t like the answers.

“Sergeant Barnes.”

Zola is losing patience. He can hear it.

But they don’t like his answers. He never gives the right answers.

He has a sudden idea. He stops, stares at Zola. “I can go outside?”

Zola frowns for a second. Then understanding dawns. “Yes, if you answer my questions you can go outside.”

“The ravine.”

He’s thought about it. It makes sense. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

But Zola just looks lost. “The ravine? The ravine is real?”

He’s pacing again, little figures of eight around the space at the back of the room.

“Mmhmm.” He nods.

“What do you mean? What ravine?”

“I’m dyin.” He stops. He grins. “You ain’t real.”

“Ah.” Zola looks at the ceiling. Runs a hand through his hair. “You believe that you were never found? That this is a dream. A… hallucination?”

He nods. “That’s all it is. I’m dyin, is all. Stevie was always seein things while he was sick. So that’s all it is. And I’ll tell you something else,” he walks over to the back of the chair, clenches his fist on its back rest, he leans in, like he’s telling a secret, “it ain’t 1948 either.”

Its triumphant. Like playing an ace in a card game. His winning hand.

Proof.

Because nobody… Nobody has the power to move him through fucking time.

He doesn’t give a shit how clever Zola is.

Zola smiles faintly. “It is 1955, Sergeant Barnes.”

There’s a faint screeching at the back of his brain. “No, it’s not. It’s not!”

He shoves at the chair. It screams as it slides about a foot across the concrete.

He’s pacing again. Wild, erratic. He wants to put his fist through the wall. Watch the masonry crumble. He wants to break his hand against it. Feel all his bones snap like matchsticks.

But mostly he just wants it to stop. He wants to understand.

He wants to go outside.

“Will you sit down, Sergeant? So we can talk like reasonable men?”

He does. Because he wants answers.

He wants it all to make sense.

He wants Zola to make it make sense.

The chair is closer to Zola now, after he shoved at it. Closer to the table and it’s notepad and it’s pencil.

Zola hasn’t picked it up. Hasn’t written anything.

Perhaps that means he’s doing well.

Zola crosses his legs, clasps his hands on his knees. “Good. Now, you have proposed your theory, but I wonder if you have perhaps considered another explanation? Perhaps you are not dying, perhaps you are dead already? Perhaps you are in Hell?”

Has he considered it? Maybe.

In the deep, dark night of his mind.

But Zola’s got a look on his face like he’s already won.

So he’s shaking his head, because Zola is smiling that awful, evil smile and he doesn’t understand.

“Did you think it had gone unnoticed? Having conversations with yourself in the dark? Talking with your ‘Stevie’?”

He feels suddenly cold. The ice slipping down his spine. The ice he knows so, so well.

Because he’s been found out.

He’s…

Honestly, he thought it would be worse. The feeling. The shame. But it’s tempered, tempered by the burning, roiling fire filling up his gut. Tempered by the hate he feels hearing Stevie’s name on Zola’s tongue. “Don’t talk about him.”

Zola’s smiling like he’s about to shed his skin. “I regret that your Stevie is not here to see you now. But then, perhaps he would not be so shocked after all?”

He is clutching at the metal of the chair next to his leg, knuckles flashing white through his skin. The fire is burning up through his chest. “Shut up.”

“You drop to your knees at a kind word. Like a dog, ja? This is what he liked?”

His hand is shaking. He hates Zola. Hates him like he didn’t think it was possible to hate. “Stop it.”

“You dropped to your knees for him also?”

He snatches up the pencil, without a thought, like it’s a reflex, like its everything he’s been trained for.

Hurls himself forwards.

It’s barely a step. Zola let him sit too close.

Because Zola is a smug, arrogant bastard.

There’s the briefest flash of shock across Zola’s face before he’s on top of him, trying to drive that pencil into his smug, bastard face.

They topple over the back of the chair. Thud heavily into the ground.

Zola’s managed to make a grab for his throat and his wrist.  

And Zola’s lucky he lost an arm or this’d already be over.

As it is he’s overbalanced, held up purely by Zola’s shaky grip. Unable to get purchase to slam that damn pencil through his eye.

A savage joy surges through him as he thinks of crushing Zola’s goddamn self-righteous skull.

_This is what they wanted from you. You’ve already lost._

The pencil shatters into shards at the force of his grip.

He growls.

Throws himself up and back out of Zola’s hold.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore.

He gave up on keeping himself long ago, all alone in that room. Now he just wants to tear all the world apart.

He grabs the one of the chairs laying discarded on its side. He slams it into the concrete floor until the metal shears away from itself, and he’s left with a jagged broken club.

Zola is just getting to his feet.

It’s not gonna make any difference.

He brings what’s left of the chair up, intending absolutely to crush Zola into the floor.

Then he hears the step behind.

_Ya can’t just get angry, Stevie. Makes ya stupid. Now keep your guard up._

Hadn’t he given that advice enough? Couldn’t follow through when it counted.

He feels the scratch of the cattle prod, right at the base of his skull.

_Sorry, Stevie._

The world flashes black, white, black, and he just about feels himself hit the concrete.

***

He comes to on the floor, cheek down on the cold concrete, little shudders of tremors still running up and down his muscles.

Someone’s shouting. “Get medical in here!”

He’s facing the doorway. Two guards are standing between him and it. Clutching rifles and cattle prods. The guards are evidently worried they’ve gone too far with him. One crouches down and he flinches as warm fingers press against his throat.

But no, God no. He isn’t dead yet.

Zola’s outside the door, looking dishevelled, talking to someone beyond the edge of the doorway. Gesturing angrily.

“I have proved my point now?” He throws his arms into the air. “This is what I have told to Gottlieb. It does not work. It makes them unstable and then you have the same problem as with leucotomy!”

He can’t hear the other man’s response.

But Zola doesn’t look impressed with it.

The guards are talking above him, but he can’t care enough to keep track of it.

Because they’ve broken him.

He’s killed before of course. For his country. For his friends.

But he’s never wanted it before. Never felt such savage pleasure in it.

He gave up hope. In the stark white of the room. Maybe before that, way up in the mountains, bleeding to death.

God knows, he gave up dignity. Begging Zola not to drill into his skull.

He’s pretty goddamn sure he gave up sanity, talking to himself in the dark.

But he never thought they’d get that bit of him.

The worst part is he’s not even surprised. He’s just tired. He’s tired to his bones and his heart.

Zola sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. “Discontinue these tests. I will find the solution. Clean him up and put him on ice. Wait for word from me.”

They’re not gonna do any more testing. That’s all he hears and all he cares about. As long as he doesn’t have to see any more ghosts, he’ll take anything else.

Unstable.

Too fucking right.

But he’s only done what they’ve asked of him. If they’ve broken him then it’s their fault, isn’t it?

He wants to go outside. It isn’t fair.

He answered Zola’s questions. He did the tests.

He was good.

He did as he was told.

One of the guards is tugging at his arm gently. But he’s so tired. He doesn’t want to go back to the room.

“Come on, get up.”

The guard gets him to his knees. He looks up at him through his hair. “Can I go outside now?”

The guard shoots a helpless look at his friend, before looking back at him. An expression that’s three parts pity and one part guilt.

He knows that look means he won’t ever see that guard again.

He knows it means he won’t get to go outside.

***

He lets himself be dragged back, hands beneath his arms... what’s left of them.

Couldn’t get his feet under him even if he wanted to, and he’s got no real incentive to make life easier on them.

It’s only when they reach the doorway that he sees. That he remembers.

That fucking bed. Gaping and looming in front of him.

He digs his heels in. Almost tips them all to the floor.

“No. No, no, please…”

There isn’t a response.

Just the guards kicking his ankles out from under him.

“Please, I won’t do it again! I won’t, I swear. What do you wanna know?”

He tries ineffectually to get his wrist free. But there’s at least five of them at his back and his legs won’t work right and there’s nothing he can do.

When the first strap tightens around his wrist, he does the only thing he can. He conjures Stevie up from the dark.

It’d been a hell of a long time since he could lose himself in memories. Everything before this was hazy and indistinct, like an old movie he’d only half paid attention to. 

So he’d take the next best thing.

There had to be a upside to being fucking nuts.

By the time they were fastening the blindfold, there was a warm hand stroking up his leg.

He waits until they’re alone.

“Stevie?”

The hand doesn’t pause. “Yeah, darlin?”

“You reckon I’m close to dyin yet?”

Because Christ, he was fucking done.

Steve clicks his tongue. “You look like ten miles of bad road, Buck. So, yeah, probably.”

“Good.”


	6. Chapter 6

Arnim brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck, as he watched the entrance of the guards and stepped up to the viewing window behind them. The flight had been long, he was getting too old to sit for so long in one position.

The guards were carrying bread and water, but Barnes did not react to their entrance, though he must have heard them.

He remained as he was, entirely still, aside from his mouth, moving silently.

As he watched, the guards began removing the restraints.

Barnes did not move to flex his limbs or sit up. Just remained, staring blankly at the ceiling.

The quality of the air told him that Maklakov was behind him, though he hadn’t heard his steps.

“You are continuing with the sensory deprivation.”

“Yes.” He heard Maklakov’s sigh. “I assume you disapprove.”

The guards were tugging at Barnes now, attempting to sit him up. He didn’t help or fight them. Nor did his expression change from one of blank disinterest. He took what was held to his mouth, but made no move to reach for the food or water the guards had brought.

Arnim clicked his tongue. “You’re in danger of breaking him entirely.”

“Well, perhaps you can write that up for your comrade, Gottlieb.”

Arnim looked back over his shoulder. “You are becoming arrogant for a man whose every attempt has failed.”

“Have yours been more successful?”

Maklakov stepped up close to him, attempting to use his considerable height for intimidation. But Arnim had faced down men infinitely more deserving of fear.

“What is it you’re doing here?” Maklakov’s black eyes were searching his face. “You were not scheduled for three months. I make allowances because you obviously have someone’s ear, but my hospitality is not unlimited.”

Arnim smiled. “Your ‘hospitality’, Nikolai? Are we not serving a higher cause?” He turned his back on Maklakov, back to the window. He could feel the man’s irritation. He shrugged lightly. “Besides, when so little has been achieved, I am reluctant to leave my experiment.” He smiled over his shoulder. “Even in such capable hands as yours.”

“If we have not achieved all that you hoped, then it is your experiment that was flawed.”

Through the window, one of the guards was shaking Barnes’s hand in an attempt to get him to grip the canteen he was being offered. Barnes did not appear to notice.

Instead, he looked over at something to his right, smiled an empty smile.

Arnim clicked his tongue again. “He is still showing evidence of the psychosis?”

“Yes.”

“Mmmm. Das ist nicht gut.”

Maklakov laughed coldly. “No. It is not proving useful.”

“Your use of electroconvulsion has proved positive?”

“Yes, to a point.” Maklakov’s voice was tight.

“To a point?”

The other guard evidently became bored with waiting. He snatched the water away from his friend, grabbed Barnes by the jaw and forcibly poured the liquid down his throat.

After a moment, Barnes coughed and struggled, as if his body had finally caught up with the danger of choking.

“He has proved more cooperative when he’s confused.”

“More suggestible?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Arnim frowned. “You use it only to render him compliant, why?”

He heard the Maklakov’s breath, the deliberate control of temper. “He is resistant to sedation. Does this questioning have a purpose?”

“Ja.” Arnim smiled, as the guards began strapping Barnes back into the bed. “There is something I would like to trial before I leave.”

***

“Hey, Stevie?”

“Yeah?”

“It hurt when you crash that plane?”

His head is in Stevie’s lap. Stevie’s fingers are curled into his hair.

He hears him sigh. “Not really.”

“No?”

“Nope.” Stevie shifts beneath him. “Wasn’t the fall that killed me.”

Steve laughs like it’s the funniest goddamn joke he’s ever made.

He doesn’t find it very funny.

“Huh.” He almost can’t hear his own voice in the dark. Wonders if perhaps he’s not talkin at all. “What did?”

The hand tightens in his hair. To the wrong side of painful. Steve’s voice is harsh. “Crashed in the Arctic, bud. The Hell d’ya think killed me?”

“Oh.” The hand is stroking softly again. “Does it hurt to die of cold, then?”

Steve laughs like he did before.

It’s a noise that promises every bad thing in the world.

“You oughta know.”

He hums. “I dunno what that means.”

His head is dragged back again, exposing his throat. There’re warm lips on his. “Don’t know much, do ya, darlin?”

Lips give way to teeth. Tearing at his lip. Brutal. 

A hand forcing his jaw open further.

The other tight in his hair.

Sharp. Hard.

“Stevie. Please.”

The hands are soft again. The tone is sweet.

“Ah, sweetheart, I’m sorry. Let me make it up to ya.”

The lips trail down his chest.

He closes his eyes.

It doesn’t make any difference.

It’s dark no matter what.

***

Steve is laid across his chest when they come back. He can feel the warm weight of him. The way his hair tickles across his skin every time he sighs.

He’d been talking to him quietly in the dark, but Stevie had fallen asleep a while back.

Now he’s just listening to him breathe.

Someone enters the room.

He registers it vaguely, like it’s happenin to somebody else. Cos he’d rather be here, with Stevie, in the dark.

There are low voices above him. Hands on the restraints. He feels them come loose.

The blindfold is snatched away and there is grey instead of black.

The guards are looming over him.

He doesn’t bother trying to remember faces anymore. They’re meaningless. Though he thinks maybe he recognises one of them.

Perhaps.

One of the guards shakes his hand. “Come on. Get up.”

He won’t.

Stevie’s sleeping. He doesn’t want to wake him.

“Hey!” There’s a slap across his cheek, snapping his head to the side, towards the wall. There’s a second’s pause before he feels the bloom of pain. Numb and vague, and empty of emotion. “Hey! Get up!”

There’re clicking fingers next to his ear, so he lolls his head over to look.

The shorter guard is crouched down next to him. Scowl across his face.

Yeah… Maybe he does know this one, though perhaps not.

It’s mixed and muddled up in his head with a kid he went to school with.

“You sure are messed up, pal. Can’t even tell old Adam Jenkins from some Ruskie asshole.” Stevie’s kissin up the base of his throat.

He laughs. He’s pretty sure his Stevie never swore as much as this one.

Who’s he kiddin? He ain’t got a clue anymore.

Steve coulda been cursin like a sailor for all he knew.

He laughs again.

Little Stevie spittin blood and cussin his way up and down the strip.

“Hey!”

The guard lifts his hand like he’s gonna smack him again, but the taller one catches his wrist. Gestures towards him. “He’s never gonna answer you. Just look at him.”

The short guard stands up. “Well, I’m not carryin him.”

He yanks at his arm. Does it again, harder, and the angle stretches something in his elbow. He feels his weight shift as he’s tipped over and dragged from the bed.

It’s reflex only, that has him turn his head before he can break his nose against the floor.

 “Get the fuck up!” The guard still has a hold of his wrist, twisted up behind his back. He lifts his foot and kicks him.

Right in the face.

Breaks the nose he’s just saved.

He coughs out a mouthful of blood. Stringing out to the concrete from his nose and his teeth.

Oh, well. There goes his pretty face.

He’s still coughing as he looks through the guards’ legs, towards where Steve is stood in the corner. In dress uniform. Lookin like a goddamn angel.

He gives a huge sigh. Like he’s real disappointed. “What you still fightin for, Buck?”

He really doesn’t know. Is he even fightin?

He thought he’d just given up.

The guard drags him off the floor and his elbow twangs awfully, pulling away from itself.

“Urgh.”

He’s dropped back into the sticky mess on the floor. Coughs again. Body still tryin to stop itself chokin to death.

Frankly, he doesn’t give much of a shit either way.

“He looks like a fuckin corpse. How’s he so heavy?”

“I dunno, there’s only three quarters of him left.”

They both laugh.

He closes his eyes.

“You just gonna lay there, Buck?”

“Fuck off, Stevie.”

The guards are talkin. And then there’s another voice.

He knows it’s Zola before he feels the hand on his back.

“Sergeant?”

He opens his eyes.

Zola is kneeling next to him. “You can hear me?”

He wonders if he should just pretend to be gone entirely. If he’s checked out, then what’s the fucking point of keeping him.

Course, how much can you do to a guy who just can’t seem to die?

It wouldn’t end.

It wouldn’t ever, ever end.

And he didn’t want to live in a world where Maklakov had free reign to do whatever he wanted with him.

He’d like to keep his remaining limbs, thanks very much.

So he nods, once.

A slap on his back that isn’t real. “Atta boy, pal.”

“Good.” Zola looks worried, creases across his forehead. “Can you stand?”

He thinks. Shakes his head.

He doesn’t want to.

“Yes, you can.” Zola reaches down to his feet, rubbing at them as if to get the feeling back. Zola ducks beneath his arm. “Come on.”

And he lets himself be pulled. It isn’t worth fighting.

“There you go, Buck.” Steve is still in the corner. He’s smiling. “Wasn’t so hard.”

He grins over at him.

“Sergeant.” Zola waits until he looks back. “If you come with me, you can clean your face, and I will set your arm.”

His arm.

He looks down at the unnaturally swelling joint.

Huh.

“You sure will be fucked without that one too, Buck.”

He laughs.

“Sergeant? Can you hear me?” He looks at Zola and Zola just looks back at him for a second. “Will you come with me?”

Why the fuck not?

He nods, lets Zola shuffle him out of the room and down the corridor.

Zola pulls him towards a doorway. “Come now, and I will deal with your arm.”

He stops dead, has to cough to clear his throat. Spits a gob of pink mucus out onto the floor. “Wanna wash my mouth.”

Zola smiles after a half beat.

In a way that lets him know that Zola was gonna let that little promise slide.

Well, fuck him.

He doesn’t forget.

And he still ain’t been outside.

He ain’t forgotten that either.

“Of course.” Zola directs him to a washroom, though who the hell it’s for, he can’t imagine. If this is what joinin the goddamn Nazis gets you, then all the other poor bastards here are hardly better off than him.

It’s grey and icy cold. Metal showers over one side that gives him the shivers for some reason he can’t grasp onto.

He turns his back on it. Staggers over to the sinks on the opposite side of the room, lined up under a row of mirrors.

The faucet is cold against his hand. When he turns it, it gurgles and spits out brown slick before runnin clear.

He doesn’t care.

He scoops up handful after handful into his mouth until he can’t taste copper anymore.

Cups water into his face and scrubs away the sticky grime.

When he straightens up, he glances into the dirt speckled mirror, trying to see the damage to his nose.

He takes in a breath.

His nose is crooked at the bottom and already bruisin dark. Lip split top and bottom. Teeth chipped.

There’s more, of course.

His cheeks are all sunk in and hollow, and that makes his eyes seem to bulge out of his head.

Givin him the look of some urchin child.

Cept for the eyes.

They were the eyes that ya went outta your way to avoid.

Mothers draggin their kids close. Away from that fella with the crazy eyes ‘cross the street.

And he’s laughing.

To think he was worried about his pretty face. With eyes like that.

“Ain’t no goin back now, Stevie.”

Zola’s talkin to him. But he can’t pay attention to that.

Not when he’s laughin like he is.

No goin back.

Zola’s face is practically splitting up with concern and that makes him laugh more.

Stevie’s smirking at him out of the mirror and he’s on his knees. Laughin and singin.

“And he ain’t gonna jump no more!”

Someone gets an arm around his throat and pulls him backwards.

He grins at Zola as he’s dragged out of the room.

Lets them drag him anywhere.

Dragged into a chair.

A chair…

That rattles and ricochets around his head and hits on nothin.

Guards are pullin restraints across his chest, his arm.

One drops low to fasten leather across his waist.

“Coulda at least bought me a drink, darlin.”

He gets another slap for that.

Spits up as much blood as he can manage at the guard.

Zola enters the room, lookin all put out.

He bursts into another chorus.

Zola scowls. “Proceed.”

Stevie’s there. Right at the back. “Sure hope you know what you’re doin, Buck.”

“’S there to lose, Stevie.”

There’s a prickle across his skin.

The smell of ozone.

“Can’t go back, Stevie.”

Steve looks that saddest he’s ever, ever looked. All the sorrow in the world has filled him right up.

And he’s guilty. For puttin all that sorrow onto Stevie’s face.

He wants to say he’s sorry. That he wishes it’d been different.

That he loves him.

But then there’s ice

and fire

throat all tearing up

Zola’s still there grinning like it’s the fuckin fourth of July

nd Stevie

through the fire

frowning at him

and he peels his skin back and it’s red

everythin is red

and fire

and smoke

***

He wakes up on the floor of the cell. Not the bed never the bed thank Christ not the bed

He can see the line of light beneath the doorway, so he’s not blindfolded.

Just on the floor.

Alone.

He’s rattlin around inside his head he’s so alone.

And nothing.

Nothing at all.

Nothing between him and the dark.


	7. Chapter 7

He’s sitting on the bed when Zola comes.

He’d been on the floor for several days _hours_ _minutes?_   vowin he wouldn’t ever go voluntarily back on _that_ bed.

But the floor was cold. It made him ache and shiver, and the more his joints seized, the more and more pointless it felt. He was only hurtin himself. 

No one else cared about his petty protest.

_Cuttin your nose of to spite your face._

Someone said that to him once… That he was that kind of man.

He couldn’t imagine it.

Being any kind of man at all.

So he got up, snatched the sheet from the bed, and curled it around his shoulders, huddled in the corner.

He is weak.

And he’s still shakin.

Zola walks in like the angel of death. “Sergeant.”

Zola’s smile is too wide. He bears his teeth in return.

“I may sit?”

He doesn’t answer.

Zola sits anyway.

“How are you feeling, Sergeant?”

He laughs, a feral thing, but still doesn’t answer.

Zola pulls something out of his pocket, it crinkles, wrapped in brown paper and he sits up straighter.

“I recall,” Zola says, unwrapping the parcel, “that you had a taste for this.” He holds it out. “Go on.” He shakes it a little. “Go on.”

He reaches for it slowly, and catching the smell of it, some animal part of his brain takes over, and he stuffs it in his mouth.

And it tastes sweet. Light pastry. Icing sugar.

It _tastes_.

How long has it been since he’s eaten?

He knows he must have. Once upon a time.

But he can’t….

He’s makin a noise, desperate and aching, as he crams it into his mouth with no restraint.

Zola called him a dog once. _Ein Scho_ _ß_ _hund_

And he is.

He outta feel ashamed but there’s no room in him for that anymore

even if his head is empty

“Das ist gut, ja?” Zola is smilin still. Leans in like he’s a friend sharin a confidence. “I do not think we need to inform Maklakov.”

He’s lickin the brown paper, suckin great swathes of it into his mouth, to keep tastin somethin

to keep feelin somethin.

And maybe it’s that. That desperation. Or perhaps he’s just reached his limit.

He sure as shit feels like he has.

He’s pretty sure there aren’t words to describe the rollin roilin in his gut.

How hollow he is.

How awfully, terribly hollow.

He almost misses the tumult of bein a lunatic.

When he was all full up with feelin. With thoughts and feelings and _being_.

When everythin mattered.

When _anythin_ mattered.

And so he asks.

Zola’s in a good mood. He might actually answer.

And if he doesn’t, if he uses it against him. A stick to beat him with.  What does it matter?

Because there’s nowhere down from here. Nothing below him but an endless empty pit.

He sits up straighter, watching Zola for any flash of emotion across his face. “Why are you doin this?”

It’s the only question he has left.

And he isn’t even delusional enough to think it matters in the least.

He’s just curious.

If he deserves it then perhaps it’ll be easier to bear.

Zola frowns. “Do you recall how you came to be here?”

He looks away.

No. He doesn’t even know where he is.

He’s kneading at his knee. He likes it. Can imagine it’s someone else doing it.

_How long is it since someone’s touched him?_

“You are a soldier.” Zola says, into the silence.

“Not for you.”

He says it instantly. And even if he can’t remember, he knows it’s true.

“No,” Zola agrees. “You were wounded.”

He looks up. Flexes the stump of his left arm unconsciously.

“Yes,” Zola says. “You were abandoned by your comrades. We found you. Brought you here.”

“Lost,” he says.

Because ‘abandoned’ is _wrong_.

But Zola just nods like it’s the same thing.

“We saved you. Gave you purpose again.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t…”

“You were terribly injured. Your mind was… damaged.”

That sure feels true.

But Zola is lying. He is leaning forward, lookin for all the world like a fella that’s tryin to hustle you. Tryin to make out like he’s your best buddy, while all the time he’s got his fingers in your back pocket.

“We’re aiming only for your recovery, Soldier.”

It doesn’t make sense.

“Why?”

Zola frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Why rescue an enemy combatant?” He tugs the sheet tighter around his shoulders. Tucks his knees up to his chest. “’f I was so hurt, why not let me die? ‘S a waste of resources.”

Zola sits back, eyebrows raised. “Is that standard procedure in your army?”

He’s fucked if he knows.

Zola presses on. “Is that what you would have done?”

“I don’t…”

These questions are too hard, and he’s all emptied out.

Zola’s smiling. “It appears you missed the Geneva Convention, soldier.”

He doesn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. Zola’s lyin, but he’s sayin it like it obvious. Like _he’s_ the one that’s all mixed up.

And it doesn’t make sense.

He’s shakin again. “Why me? Why not someone else?”

Zola smiles again. “Because you’re special.”

He drops his face into his hand. Drops further, face on the mattress. Curled over into a ball.

It’s too much. It’s too fucking much and he doesn’t understand.

He thinks he’s crying but it feels more like he can’t breathe. Sayin the same thing, over and over.

_“I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”_

“Soldier?”

“Why did you take him from me?”

“Who?”

He doesn’t know, but in the gap between his arm and the sheets, he can see the corner of the room. How it’s empty.

Can feel his empty mind.

His empty heart.

He can’t breathe.

“Soldier?”

He doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He doesn’t want to feel so empty.

“Please.” He says it quietly, summons up the will to look at Zola as he says it. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what you want. Just… just tell me what you want me to do. Just don’t… Please, don’t…”

He doesn’t know what he’s asking for.

Something in Zola’s face softens. He lifts a hand.

There’s a hiss in the back of his head tellin him it’s a lie, and he knows it, he does, but what difference does it make?

What does it matter?

He shuffles forwards, drops his head into Zola’s lap. Zola’s hand drops into his hair, rubbing circles behind his ear.

He screws his eyes closed.

Lets himself just feel it.

Pretend it’s someone else.

“You just have to comply,” Zola says softly. “That is all.”

He finds himself nodding, pushing into Zola’s hand.

And he hates himself.

***

Barnes was progressing well. After the breakthrough following the electroconvulsive trials, Arnim had been able to recommence testing with him.

Barnes’s new compliance was certainly helpful in that regard, however, so was his nature. Arnim had been right in his first assessment. Barnes was clever.

And, it soon became clear, tremendously bored.

He had been kept isolated for almost ten years now, including time spent in stasis. Largely in the same room, often with no visual or auditory stimulation. With no opportunity to stretch his body or his mind.  

So now he applied himself with enthusiasm to almost any task put in front of him. Arnim was particularly pleased with this. It promised great things for his willingness to act in his new role.

It still maddened Arnim that he had been unable to perform control testing during the war, but the results were certainly suggestive that the serum had also produced cognitive effects.

Arnim had been eager to test the full extent of Barnes’s ability with languages. He had managed to find a guard on site who spoke Polish. This was suitably different to the languages Barnes was known to already possess to act as a control.

And the incentive of being allowed to converse with another person was enough that Barnes was happy enough to obey.

Within a week, Barnes was able to construct simple sentences and follow instructions. By the end of a month, he was able to argue complex ideas.

Arnim had no doubt he would soon be as fluent in Polish as he was in German, Russian and French.

However, it was in mathematical problems that Barnes truly excelled.

He completed them rapidly. Logic puzzles, probability, even Newtonian mechanics. 

That was what he was completing now. Projectile trajectories.

y = x tanθ - (gx2)/(2u2)sec2θ

Arnim was sat opposite him, watching. He had the answers memorised. So he could watch as Barnes got answer after answer right.

When he finally finished the last one, Barnes looked up with a brilliant smile.

“Sehr gut,” Zola said. He made sure to match Barnes’s smile.

He responded well to positive reinforcement.

A man who expended a great deal of effort in persuading people to like him.

It was a useful trait.

Arnim had included that in his last correspondence with Gottlieb. That he may have more success if he screened for personality type. Those with a desire to please appeared to be more suggestible.

Arnim leaned across the table and offered Barnes a cigarette, which he took with a grin, ducking down to let Arnim light it for him.

He closed his eyes, took a long drag. “Can’t get enough of these.”

He said it in a strange pidgin mix of French and German.

Once he had realised that Arnim had taken an interest in his ability at languages, he had begun to switch at random. Rambling off in a swirl of Russian and Polish, which Arnim struggled to follow.

Arnim had made notes on that too.

He suspected it was a method of retaining a sense of control, of wrongfooting those around him, but he could not be certain.

He did, however, take pains not to react to it.

He smiled. “Are you ready to continue?”

Barnes nodded.

Arnim pushed a second sheet across to him.

These were designed to test deductive reasoning, and Arnim became excited as Barnes began to twirl his pencil around in his fingers, as he became instantly absorbed in the task.

The peaceful interlude, however, could not last. Barely five minutes had passed before Arnim heard footsteps in the corridor, and Barnes sat up, alert, like an animal, intent suddenly on the door.

“Arnim, I was not informed you were visiting!” Maklakov’s voice was amiable, in a conspicuous way. When he glanced round, Arnim saw that he was sporting a feral grin. “What brings you so far to the east?”

It was too much to ask that Maklakov would be detained in Moscow.

Barnes was barely breathing. Absolutely still. Eyes wide and intent.

“Nikolai,” Arnim offered his hand, “surely you received my message? I was scheduled to resume my tests.”

Maklakov was smiling in a way that left Arnim in no doubt that he knew he was lying, yet Arnim found he did not care.

He was ascending. His work in America had done much for his reputation amongst the upper echelons.

By the look of the lines around Maklakov’s eyes, he was not doing nearly so well.

Arnim grinned. “Great progress has been made,” he gestured behind him, “the soldier has completed every task-“

“I don’t care whether he can complete your puzzles, doctor.” Maklakov cut him off, coldly. “I care about whether he can fight.”

Arnim shrugged. “Find someone for him to spar against, and I will show-“

Maklakov gave a laugh that was like ice. “I’m not giving him a weapon.”

“Then how…”

Maklakov was already gesturing for some of his men to enter the room.

Barnes had risen to his feet, backed away to the far wall. His face had taken on a hunted edge. One which Arnim recognised as indicating he was close to being pushed to violence.

The guards dragged in a man, his hands bound behind him. He was filthy, beard matted and long, with wide dark eyes.

Arnim could feel the tension rolling off Barnes in waves behind him.

Maklakov watched dispassionately as the man was shoved to the floor. He looked over at Barnes. “Kill him.”

Barnes was breathing heavily.

Maklakov cocked an eyebrow, glancing between Barnes and Arnim. “I should repeat the order? Perhaps in Polish? Zabij go.”

“Who… who is he?”

Barnes was looking towards him, sounding soft and childlike, obviously in the hope that he could stop this. Arnim wished he could. Maklakov was continually setting him back in his attempts to gain Barnes’s obedience.

“Irrelevant,” Maklakov said. “Kill him.”

The man in the centre of the room was making gasping, whining noises that made Arnim seriously doubt whether he still had his tongue.

Barnes did not move.

“No?” Maklakov raised his eyebrows again. “Very well.”

Maklakov pulled his gun, and in a second Barnes was moving. He was fast, faster than Arnim remembered, across the room in a heartbeat to push Maklakov’s pistol towards the ceiling.

Almost instantly there was the crack of another gun, from one of the guards, and the sound of Barnes’s gasp.

He stumbled back, clutching at his gut.

Unable to contain himself, Arnim shouted. “You must not damage him!”

“Hush. He won’t die from it.”

Maklakov casually reloaded and cocked his pistol. He delivered two neat shots to the man on the floor. One to the heart and one to the head.

A spray of blood erupted from each one.

Barnes let out a distressed noise and dropped lightly to his knees, still holding onto his stomach.

Maklakov just regarded him, for a moment, then looked back to Arnim. “Until you can ensure his loyalty, he is worth nothing.” He gestured to the guards. “Take him back to the cell.”

Barnes began wailing again as the guards took hold of him.

Maklakov stooped down. “A little time back in the dark should remind you of your place.”

Barnes started shouting, ‘no please!”, and a whole host of entreaties in various languages. As he was dragged from the room, his eyes met Arnim’s.

A silent plea.

Arnim wished he could stop it. All this was achieving nothing at all, except ensuring Barnes’s defiance. While ever there was a cage to batter at then he would.

“I hope you enjoy your flight, doctor,” Maklakov said, as he exited the door. “I hope you make more progress there than you have here.”

Arnim intended to.

He thought he understood now.

However clever Barnes was, he was bound by his own rules. He would comply while ever a task seemed enjoyable or diverting, but as soon as he found anything distasteful he would refuse, regardless of the punishment threatened.

He had assumed that retrograde amnesia would remove such learnt behaviours and moralities. He had not considered that some things may be innate.

To remove such things entirely would require extensive reconfiguring of his machine, but he was enthused. He had a plan now.

He couldn’t wait to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, for such a long delay, I have now hopefully got my shit together (or as together as it ever is) *fingers crossed*
> 
> This is mostly a bridging chapter (one that I am certain I handled quite clumsily), but I hope you enjoyed it regardless. 
> 
> The rest of this is mostly drafted, so I'm hoping to get it posted reasonably quickly. And anyone waiting for Stardust, I'm hoping to post the next chapter later in the week.


	8. Chapter 8

He’s on his feet when the guards arrive.

Heard them comin. Had to be up.

_Get up, fag._

They didn’t like it when he made them wait.

He’s swayin a little. Off balance.

Outta kilter.

Or somethin.

They don’t speak. Just look at him.

Don’t need to.

He walks from the room. They follow.

They don’t need the guns anymore. He’s learnt that lesson too.

The paint in the corridor is scratched off in places. Claw marks in the hospital green.

His nails are hacked short. Stopping below the pad of his fingers. Tries to imagine them split open and bloody. Peeled away from him.

It comes too easily.

After that he keeps his eyes on the floor.

Doesn’t want to think.

There’s somethin familiar about the room they lead him to.

“Ah, soldier, you are well rested?”

If he did still sleep, he thinks that voice would haunt his dreams.

Zola looks older. His hair has lost its colour. The skin is sagging away from his eyes.

He scans across the room. He doesn’t recognise any of the technicians.

Then his eyes fall on the chair and his stomach drops into his shoes.

He’s seen this chair before.

The smell of ozone is at the back of his skull. Something chemical, as well, stinging at his nose.

He’s sure…

He can’t remember.

He stops. Hears the curse of annoyance as the guard behind him nearly stumbles into his back.

 “I have found the solution. I have perfected it.”

The excitement coming of Zola is like a physical presence in the room.

It sets a swirling dread loose in his stomach. Trying to force its way out of his throat.

And that _chair_ …

He doesn’t move.

Zola is beckoning him. “I have perfected the technique. Come, soldier. So much time has been lost already.”

He still goes nowhere. He’s in the threshold of the room, neither in nor out.

It feels like there’s still an escape route. One more step forward would be a leap from a precipice.

He doesn’t know why.

But he trusts his gut. “The technique?”

“Ja, soldier.” Zola is fiddling with some of the equipment to the side. “You recall our conversation,” he looks up, grinning like it’s a joke, “perhaps you do not, but we spoke many years ago on the subject of Dr Freeman and his procedure.”

He gets a flash of Zola and his pick, the press of metal against his cheek.

_The orbitoclast is very effective at destroying brain matter. Just a single tap of the hammer and all is complete, ja._

“No.”

“Well, no matter. Your knowledge of the subject is not necessary for its success.” Zola pats at the chair. “Come. Sit, soldier.”

He doesn’t move.

“You said it was risky.”

“Ja, ja, but I have removed all risk.” Zola is impatient. He holds his hand out. “Come.”

He’s shaking his head. He steps back, thuds into the chest of one of the men behind him. He feels the man reach out to steady him. Hand warm against his hip.

“But…” He’s still shaking his head. He doesn’t understand. “But you promised.”

“What?” Zola’s frowning. No, more than that. He’s scowling.

He’s never seen Zola angry before.

He tries to step back again. The guard stands solid.

“You would compare my machine to Freeman’s brutality?” Zola’s marching towards him. The guard tightens his grip against his elbow. “My machine can pinpoint to the individual neuron, soldier! To the neuron!”

Zola stops all of a sudden. Sighs. Runs a hand over his face. “I apologise. I forget myself. It is not possible that you should understand the complexity. Gottlieb would not listen either.”

The guard loosens his grip ever so slightly. He could step forward if he wanted.

He doesn’t.

Zola sighs again. Approaches him, hand outstretched. “I have removed all risk. It has been tested. Come, and I will explain, ja?”

Zola beckons.

“Come.”

He steps forward, tentative, slow. Because he wants to understand.

And Zola needs him.

Because he’s special. Zola said so.

He needs to comply, because he needs Zola to keep needing him.

He can’t remember why. Can’t remember any threats or consequences. But he knows if Zola doesn’t need him, then Maklakov will take him.

And there’ll be endless, endless dark.

Zola leads him over to the machine.

“See.” He gestures. “These are electrodes. They are accurate at a cellular level. There is no damage to surrounding structures. Understand?”

He shakes his head, no.

Zola sighs again. “You find it difficult. To comply? You struggle with it. It is not in your nature. I understand. But you would like it to be easy? You would like to be good. You would like to go outside?”

There’s a flicker at that, of resentment half remembered.

Whatever Zola is referring to, he knows the unfairness of it is burned so deep into him, it oughta be carved into his bones.

He nods.

Zola is nodding too, like everything should make perfect sense.

“This machine will make it easy. There will be no more fight. No more struggle.” Zola reaches up to brush against his cheek. His hand is warm. “There is no risk of damage.”

Zola is pushing him backwards. He goes easily.

“It is flawless. I assure you.”

He is nodding. He feels the edge of the chair hit the back of his knees and he sits.

“The perfect machine for my perfect machine.”

He goes suddenly still. Something is screaming at the back of his head.

It’s a trick.

It’s not… true…

It’s…

But Zola is smiling, stroking at his cheek.

He’s shaking his head, trying to stand.

Zola frowns, hands against his shoulders. Not pushing. Just holding. “You do not wish to comply? You do not wish to be good?”

“I… don’t…”

But he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say.

These people are… He shouldn’t be…

_Fight, Buck_.

He rears up.

Feels sick.

He throws himself into the furthest corner of the room. Sinks to the floor. He’s shaking.

“Soldier?” Zola is reaching out again. “You still do not understand.”

He laughs. Just the wrong side of unhinged. “Yeah. Yeah, I fucking do!” He’s pointing at the chair, laughing. Lunatic laugh. Unstrung. “You wanna burn out bits of me. You wanna… It’s…”

And for a second, he gets a flash of imagery. Paper skin and empty eyes.

Taste of copper.

Him, but not. Not anymore.

He’s struggling, stuttering. He’s pretty sure there aren’t words for what he’s trying to say.

“No, soldier, no. It is nothing so violent. It is to help, that is all. It is painful to see you so distressed. But this will make it clear, ja?” Zola is almost close enough to touch him, but he doesn’t. “Come now. And then you will not be so confused. You will understand. Come, James.”

He shudders at the sound of that word. It’s _wrong._

Wrong in Zola’s voice.

_It’s a lie. It’s all a lie._

He shakes his head again, drops his face into his knees.

He feels Zola coming closer. Shudders again.

“What other choice do you have?” Zola’s voice is calm. Kind. Unyielding. “You do not know where you are. You have no supplies. No transport. Escape is not possible. You knew that from the start.”

His hand is clenched tight. He oughta have run, sang out his heart. Directionless guilt with no memory attached to it.

But it was there.

He oughta have run.

Oughta have slit his throat.  

“And who is there to welcome you home? You are a collaborator. A traitor. You think your government will forgive so easily?”

He’s pressing so hard into himself, he’s surprised all his bones don’t just collapse. “Not true. ‘S not.”

“No? You followed orders, did you not? Participated willing in our experiments under promise of reward? Told us secrets? Is that not the definition of a collaborator?”

“No… It wasn’t like that… I didn’t…”

“You remember it? You are sure?”

He can feel himself sinking.

“Who will shield you if you defect now? After all that you’ve done.” There’s a moment’s silence. “Look at me, soldier.”

He does.

He’s well trained.

Zola is crouched in front of him, lined face contorted into something like sympathy. “What is there for you now away from here? A fugitive in a country that isn’t yours. A cripple,” he flinches, “and a deranged one at that. What future is there for you out there?”

He looks away.

It’s true. He knows it.

_No way back._

Zola lays a hand on his arm. “With us you will have purpose. Respect. All you have to do is submit to my machine, and all this confusion will be gone. Everything will be clear.”

 He can’t escape. There’s no way back.

Zola’s going to burn him all out. Cut and carve up his mind until he gives in. Until he isn’t him anymore. Zola will do it whether or not he agrees.

Zola will win.

He looks towards the machine. Takes in its lines. The cold certainty of it. Imagines it wiping him out. “But I won’t be there anymore?”

There’s the faintest pause before Zola answers. Proof of the lie. “It will help you. That is all.”

Zola hasn’t understood, but it doesn’t matter. He has his answer.

He gets slowly to his feet, forcing Zola to back away. Surprised, like he didn’t think he’d win so easily.

Well, the joke’s on him.

Because it’s him that’s won.

No choices left, apart from this one.

And he chooses to not _be_.

It’s not so different from death, really. Not in the end.

He sits without fuss. Lets them strap him in. Attach wires and electrodes.

He is calm.

Because it’s his choice. And he chooses to go.

Away from Zola and Maklakov and the fucking dark. Away from whatever _purpose_ they have for him.  

Away from this body and this mind.

Zola is smiling. He lays a hand, warm against his chest, pats against him once, and as he steps away, the warmth remains.

The ghost of touch, half remembered.

It presses against him, touches lip to lip.

It’s important, that ghost, beneath the crackle of ozone, he knows it, though he can’t remember why.

He’s glad that it’s with him

that it stays

through all of the fire

and then all of the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay! This is the first thing I've ever posted that I hadn't written before I started posting (along with Stardust), and it turns out that that was a horrible mistake XD
> 
> Anyway, here it is, I can only apologise!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two at once!
> 
> I thought I'd let you all wait long enough!

Arnim stood deliberately still in front of the soldier. It was important not to show any weakness. Any fear.

He was not standing in front of a man anymore. But nor an automaton.

The soldier knew his own strength. He had proved that this morning.

He required a firm hand.

But a kind hand, too.

The soldier was straight backed, but not blank. He had been watching Zola since he entered.

It was the look of a predator.

“Do you know me?”

There was an almost endless pause, and Zola wasn’t sure he wouldn’t buckle under the strength of that gaze.

It was almost on his tongue to say it didn’t matter, that it was fine. Even as he was thinking of how he could reconfigure his machine. It would not do to have the soldier have no working memory at all.

But then the soldier nodded, slowly.

There was another pause.

“Stollen?” The soldier said, quietly. Only half a question.

“Ja.” Arnim smiled. “Sehr gut, soldier.”

If he watched very closely, he could see the swell of contentment run through Barne- the soldier, at the praise. Perhaps it was only that he knew him so well, after all their training.

But he saw it.

And he knew it was excellent news.

“Report.”

The soldier raised his left arm, knew without being told that he required information on the newly acquired prosthetic. That was also good news. It indicated an ability for inference.

Nothing in the procedure appeared to have damaged the intellect or communicative ability.

“Functional,” the soldier said. He flexed the joints. “Slight malalignment of plates thirty-two and thirty-three.”

“Cause?”

“Poor configuration.”

That was good, it had not been damaged during training. If it had, Arnim would have to have it redesigned.

It needed to withstand much more than it had already.

Arnim nodded. “Anything else? Pain?”

The soldier frowned, as if searching for the correct answer. Arnim waited.

“Yes?” The soldier was unsure.

“Where?”

Again, there was no answer forthcoming.

Arnim wondered if he was struggling to interpret sensation, or if his cognition had been damaged after all. It would require more testing.

“It does not matter, soldier.”

The soldier still had a hunted look about him, unsure how his lack of answer had been taken, so Arnim slipped the hunk of chocolate out of his pocket, wrapped in foil.

He held it out.

The soldier did not move. Didn’t glance down.

Arnim smiled again. “Take it.”

The soldier did, with none of the desperation of last time. He was all control. Human desire had been clipped.

But dopamine was biological. All animals attached to those who fed them. And Arnim saw the look on Barnes’s face.

It was unconcealed and open.

Arnim had him.

Barne- the soldier had a stubborn streak. Hostility would breed only defiance. But kindness bought loyalty.

A sharp clap snapped Arnim out of his daydreams. The soldier did not jump.

“Well done, doctor.” Maklakov was leaning in the doorway. His face was anything but congratulatory. The lines around his eyes were deeper than ever. How many times had he been called back to Moscow this month alone?

Maklakov clapped again. “You know I had my doubts. But your demonstration this morning was impressive.”

It had been more than impressive. Even in the state he was in after so long in captivity, the soldier held off every opponent. Hit every target.

Arnim had been right all those years ago. Barnes had been well trained, a soldier, a sniper. A boxer, even before all of that.

He knew how to make every movement count.

With proper training, nutrition, the effects of the serum, he would be unstoppable.

Maklakov was grinning as he stepped into the room. Still the mantis, the predator. However, he was no longer the only predator in the room.

“And such obedience.” He said it with faux awe, then snapped towards the soldier. “On your knees. Don’t move from there.”

The soldier did it, though if such a movement could be made sarcastic, he managed it.

Arnim almost smiled himself.  

Maklakov turned towards him. And there was an open malice to his expression which didn’t surprise Arnim in the slightest.

In fact, he could have predicted this ten years ago.

“You too,” Maklakov said, calmly.

“I think not.”

Maklakov shrugged slightly, as he drew his pistol. “As you wish.”

Arnim set his feet and squared himself. “What is it you’re hoping for, Nikolai? You think this will win you back any allies?”

Maklakov sent a furtive glance back at the soldier, who was watching with an expression most would call mild disinterest.

Arnim knew better.

Maklakov shifted his weight again, flexed his fingers against the pistol held at his side. “I don’t think anyone will be able to stop me.”

Arnim kept his breathing very, very steady. “They’ll come for you.”

“I’ll come for them.” Maklakov’s lips turned up into a sneer. “And you’re a little self-satisfied for this scenario.”

He lifted the gun.

Arnim did not flinch, though he could admit to himself that he may have played this poorly.

“Do svidanya, Arnim.”

Maklakov raised the pistol.

The soldier moved like lightning. He thudded into Maklakov, sent him sprawling into the wall. His flesh hand pinning the wrist holding the gun. The other wrapped tightly against Maklakov’s throat.

“Stop!” Maklakov was scrabbling with his free hand. “Soldat! Stop!”

The soldier did not move. But nor was he causing any harm. He was immobilising Maklakov, and nothing more.

Maklakov’s wild eyes found Arnim’s. “Izmennik!”

Arnim shook his head. “I work for the cause, that is all.”

To have pride in that work was no sin.

Maklakov was still struggling. The veins standing out on his neck as he pulled against the soldier’s grip. “My men won’t follow you.”

Now Arnim allowed himself to smile. He looked pointedly towards the soldier. “I do not think anyone will stop me. Soldat?”

The soldier looked expectantly towards him, and though he must know what was coming, he did not pre-empt the order.

“Do it.”

Though Maklakov drew in a deep breath to protest, he did not get the chance to use it.

And if Arnim needed any proof that Barn- the soldier had retained the memory, or at least the emotion, of what had occurred over the last ten years, it came now. The soldier carefully swapped hands, wrapping flesh against the skin of Maklakov’s neck.

And squeezed.

Maklakov’s skin quickly turned red with the effort of straining, with the blood pooling. He was still scrabbling. Desperately, uselessly.

Arnim watched for as long as he could.

Until Maklakov’s eyes were bulging out of his head. Blood vessels bursting, and filling the corneas with red.

Arnim looked away.

Within a heartbeat, there was a snap and Arnim opened his eyes to see that it was over. Maklakov was crumpled against the floor, facing away from where Arnim was stood.

The soldier was looking towards him. Waiting.

And though Arnim couldn’t be certain, he was convinced that the soldier had ended it quickly, cut short his own vengeance, because of Arnim’s distress.

“Soldier?”

The soldier stepped neatly across the room, until he was stood close, and for a second, Arnim wanted to ask. Needed to know.

_What did you feel as you killed him?_

_What do you feel?_

He brushed it aside. It was irrelevant.

“Sehr gut, soldat.” He saw that prickle of contentment again, and reached up to clasp B- the soldier’s shoulder. “Now, you are owed a reward, I think?”

He thought he almost saw the soldier smile.

***

The sky was bright and clear as Arnim pulled open the iron door. The air still held a chill, a linger of winter, but the grass was green again.

The brink of spring.

Arnim barely heard the shuffle behind him, the soldier was light on his feet, but he did hear the intake of breath.

Barnes had his head tipped back, hair wafting in front of his face. His eyes were closed. His mouth hanging open with slow languid breaths.

He took a few steps forward and a nest of birds startled out of the long grass, screeching into the air. His eyes snapped open and he followed them openly with his gaze.

Arnim smiled.

Barnes turned back towards him. Face open and bright with awe. Inviting Arnim to share in his wonderment.

Arnim couldn’t help the swell of pride.

Barnes’s attention flickered away again, caught by some sound or movement too subtle for Arnim, but Arnim was content to let him drift for the moment.

He had succeeded.

He smiled again, at the soldier’s back, as he revelled in the brush of the wind. The sound of the birds.

“We are going to do great things,” Arnim said.


	10. Epilogue

Alex walked like he knew exactly what he was doing. He’d learnt that long ago. Men who scuttled like insects were apt to be stepped on. His father had told him that, aged fourteen, and sporting a split lip and a shiner from a fistfight there was no need to get into, while he was playing at being James Dean.

No one ever earned respect by scrapping in the dirt, he’d said, and if you carried yourself like a man who was owed the world, then people would give it to you.

That was probably the best damn advice he’d ever been given.

Hopefully it worked on half-deranged Soviet assassins too.

He knew why he had been sent.

It was a test, first and foremost, though of what he wasn’t entirely certain. What he was certain of, was that success was the only option. He knew he had excelled so far, he had caught the eyes of many of his superiors.

Hydra was filled with agents who could handle a gun, but there weren’t many who knew how to handle men. He could rise quickly if he was clever, and patient. This would serve to prove his abilities.

However, he also knew the other reason he had been picked. He was junior enough to be expendable if he didn’t prove up to the task. One more corpse wearing concrete boots.

There were footsteps clacking up the corridor to meet him.

“Sir?” One of the technicians was scurrying along. Under the fluorescent lights, Alex could see the sheen of sweat across his forehead. “You’re..?”

Alex flashed a smile and held out his hand. “Pierce. A pleasure, though I suspect circumstances could be better.”

“Yes.” The technician took his hand as if he’d forgotten what he was supposed to do with it. “Command sent you?”

He was already pulling Alex along the corridor.

“I heard you could use some help.”

“I’ve never…” The tech remembered to drop his hand. “You’ve worked with the Asset before?”

“I’ve observed.”

The tech’s jaw went tight. “Usually we would call Zola. But obviously… No one else has been able to-”

“What’s the situation?”

The technician had picked up his pace, an attempt to hurry Alex along. He deliberately slowed down. “It’s been uncooperative for days. It gets like that sometimes. Usually we can recondition. But something set it off during maintenance. We don’t… It killed Martinez. It just-“ The tech broke off, swallowed with some difficulty. “We have it contained, but…”

Contained. Meaning they’d fled the room and left Hydra’s prize weapon to his own devices.

Alex made a mental note to remember the faces of every man involved in this fiasco. They would never work under him again. Not when he had the power to ensure it.

“Where is it?”

“It’s… It’s in the maintenance room.”

“Well,” he flashed the tech his grin again, “we’d best get it out then.”

He knew when they’d reached the correct room, there were half a dozen men with AK’s pointed at the steel door. One was shaking so that one of the straps on his gun was rattling against his barrier vest. There was an irregular smear of blood smudging out from beneath the door. A flailing body had been dragged. The trail ended around ten feet up the corridor in a deeper pool of red. The unfortunate Martinez had already been cleared away.

The door had an open observation hatch, so Alex pushed his way through the guns and peered in.

The room looked as though it’d been struck by a hurricane. He winced at the cost of all that destroyed equipment. A couple of crumpled boxes of electronics were still sparking, wires shorting out through grey plastic. They reminded him of some kind of medical equipment. ECG machines perhaps, but he was no engineer. There was a chair at the centre of the room, innocuous enough, except for the heavy-duty restraints. Alex was almost certain that he didn’t want to know.

The Asset was pacing circles through the devastation, he didn’t look towards the door. Nor did he appear to be eager to escape the room. In all honesty, he reminded Alex of the tigers he’d seen at the Bronx Zoo as a child, pacing restlessly, trying to carve out a scrap of territory inside another man’s cage.

“Is there anything I should know?”

Alex looked over his shoulder, running his eyes over the team. There was a moment of uncertain shifting. He could read them easily enough. Disbelief that he was about to walk in there in nothing more armoured than a tailored suit. Shame that they were cowering outside the door.

A fair bit of relief too, he was sure, that the responsibility had been taken out of their hands.

They were glancing around at each other.

Eventually, the team leader met his eye. “Don’t turn your back on it.”

He was older, had the look of someone who had seen real combat, unlike most of the others. Alex could see why he had pulled these men back. They were unreliable. Untested.

The man who was shaking let out a huff of breath that might have been a laugh on any other day. “Thing’s psychotic. Christ knows how Zola used to do it! Barely stood five feet high and he musta been eighty years old by the end.”

“Anderson.”

His team leader cut him off with a scowl, but Alex suspected Anderson had already booked his ticket to a shallow grave. You were either useful to the cause or you weren’t. And Anderson had the distinct look of a liability.

In any case, he wasn’t surprised that these men could not handle the Asset. You couldn’t strongarm someone who could snap you in half with one hand.

The situation required something more subtle.

He hoped he was correct. Otherwise Anderson wasn’t the only one heading towards a grave in some isolated bit of woods.

He placed his hand on the door, and his heart had picked up pace in anticipation. In preparation. He recognised it for what it was, biology only. It was not fear.

He took a couple of breaths to remind himself of that.

And then he opened the door.

The Asset barely acknowledged his presence, shooting a wary glance towards him and altering his route to take up a smaller area at the back of the room. 

Alex didn’t say anything, just gently let the door close behind him with a soft click.

Again, the Asset didn’t react, didn’t stop his pacing. There were thin trails of dried blood down his flesh arm, likely evidence of the IVs which were currently dripping increasing pools of fluid onto the floor. Beyond that, he appeared to be in fair condition. Alex didn’t know what kind of ‘maintenance’ was being done.

His silent presence was beginning to have an effect. While at first he was being deliberately ignored, now the Asset’s eyes were darting across to him with every pass. Good. He was unnerved. He had expected an attack or a command. Alex had put him on the back foot.

He looked like that tiger again. The one that’d been caught off guard and allowed a human into its space, and now didn’t know what to do about it.

“Well,” he forced his best grin, “it would seem you’ve got yourself into a spot of trouble.” He gestured towards the chair in the centre of the room, which bore a fair few marks of the Asset’s considerable strength itself. Namely the armrest marked with a fist shaped crumple. “Mind if I sit?”

The Asset didn’t answer. Alex didn’t actually know if he could.

He picked his way over to the chair, stepping carefully over the smears of blood and IV fluid on the green linoleum floor. He settled himself carefully.

This position left little room for pacing, but it did leave plenty of space behind his back. He couldn’t actually hear the Asset’s steps. For about twenty heart stopping seconds he realised he had no way of knowing whether a fist was heading for the back of his skull.

He deliberately didn’t look.

Then the Asset skirted around to the left, hugging the side of the room and putting himself in the centre of the wall. The farthest place from both Alex and the door, which still had sightlines for both. He dropped into a crouch that was anything but relaxed. Now he was still, Alex could see the glint of one of the broken IV lines emerging from his skin.

“There are half a dozen men out there who aren’t very happy with you.” The Asset’s stare sent a prickle of unease down his spine. An adrenaline shot straight to his heart. It was like staring down a shark. Except he couldn’t make a shark blink first. “And I have to say, you sure do have a mean left hook.”

He doubted Martinez had had the opportunity to admire it much, but the point stood.

Something in the Asset’s eyes softened. He supposed it didn’t matter much what he was saying, so he just kept the low tone going. Conversational.

“Of course, I don’t expect you exactly play by Queensbury rules. Still, I’d say Sugar Ray Robinson has a lower kill count than you.”

Something had definitely shifted, the Asset was watching him, watching him properly, without the edge of defence. He was still crouched, but the power had gone out of the stance.

Alex decided to take a chance. He held out his hand. “Looks like you’re bleeding there.”

Or had been at least. He waited as it took the Asset an unnaturally long time to parse out his words and look down at his arm.

“Can I see?”

He waited again, left his hand outstretched.

The Asset stood, uncertainly, and Alex still waited. Waited for all that power to step its way over to him, like a shy girl on a dancefloor. The Asset walked right through all the mess on the floor, as if it wasn’t there. He stopped too close, towering over Alex in the chair, the sort of distance you might stand from a family member, or a spouse. But then, Alex didn’t suppose social niceties had been part of the Soviet training programme.

The Asset held out his arm.

Alex let him wait for a second. “Thank you.”

He trailed over the skin, pressing down ever so slightly so that the metal pushed up more visibly, and tugged it gently out. He wasn’t too concerned, even if he damaged the blood vessel, it wasn’t like the Asset was going to bleed out.

There wasn’t any sign of damage at all.

“It’s much easier when you cooperate, isn’t it?”

Alex looked up straight into his face. He could only imagine what the tac team outside were thinking, allowing himself to be in such a vulnerable position. But they didn’t know what real control was.

He pushed himself smoothly to his feet, and the Asset automatically stepped away to make room.

Alex smiled, thought he saw the faintest twitch of a returned grin. On a whim, he reached up to cup the back of the Asset’s neck. Perhaps it was a show for the men outside. Or perhaps for the briefest moment he wanted to see all that power bow under his hand.

The Asset leaned into him, just waiting to be directed.

He smiled again. “Now, are you going to follow me?”

He felt a thrill of satisfaction up his spine as the Asset nodded.

“Good,” he said softly, and felt that thrill again.

Because the Asset smiled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me so far!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! (Though I'm not sure enjoyed is the right word!)


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